French weekly magazines review 31 July 2016

Terrorism and the American presidential race are this week's front-page topics . . . with a glance ahead to the Olympic Games in Rio.

DR

Weekly magazine Marianne says France must use the recent attacks in Nice and Rouen as a spur to fundamental change: the nation's muslim communities have to be helped to understand that they are part of the problem, not because of any supposed support for the murderers, but because of the fundamental ambivalence of islam with regard to the western world.

Marianne quotes the muslim philosopher Abdennour Bidar as reminding his co-religionist that "we have not yet proved to our neighbours that we really want to be part of modern Europe."

Bidar goes on to say that the reactions of horror of ordinary muslims in the wake of each atrocity are absolutely necessary. The world must hear, loud and clear, the message that islam has nothing to do with barbarism. But that is not enough, says Abdennour Bidar. The problem is that the root of the evil of fundamentalism resides in the heart of each muslim.

And while philosophers like Bidar are greeted with enthusiasm by a non-muslim population in need of assurance, the salafist preachers continue to make converts among the hopeless unemployed of the nation's ghettos, aided and abetted by the nationalist discourse of the far right and some members of Sarkozy's Republican party.

If France's moderate muslims are to win the fight against the fundamentalists, says Marianne, they will need our help, not our criticism, fear or contempt.

Hillary steps out of the shadows, and into history

Both L'Express and Le Nouvel Observateur give the honours to Hillary Clinton, confirmed earlier this week as the Democratic candidate for this year's US presidential battle.

Le Nouvel Observateur sees her victory at the end of the marathon pre-selection process as a triumph for a woman who has lived for so long in the shadow of powerful men . . . first her president husband, then her boss Barack.

But what can she offer Americans? Great intelligence, determination, a capacity for hard work, suggests Le Nouvel Observateur. She has the ability to compromise, is not going to defend a party line simply because the oppoosition says the opposite. She listens to others, especially to those who disagree with her. And Hillary also has a sort of pragmatism, an acceptance that not all current geopolitical problems are currently solvable, at least not by US efforts alone.

If elected, Hillary has promised to regularise the status of millions of illegal immigrants, to improve the lot of the struggling American middle class, to get tough with the wolves of Wall Street. She says she will spend 220 billion euros on modernising US infrastructure, the most by any president since Eisenhower began building the nation's superhighways in the 1950s.

Why don't more Americans like Clinton?

L'Express says Hillary Cinton has cruised past all the obstacles in a brilliant career, but is still not liked by the vast majority of Americans. "Why so much hate?" wonders the French weekly, suggesting that part of the answer is to be found in her too long association with power. People think that she has survived because she is calculating, dishonest, self-interested.

A recent opinion poll showed only 37 percent of Americans consider Hillary Clinton honest and worthy of confidence. By contrast, forty-five percent say they would trust Trump. She still has a long way to go to get back to the White House.

International Olympic Committee gives in to Russian Tsar

Weekly satirical paper Le Canard Enchaîné is scathing about the failure of the International Olympic Committee to dump the entire drug-riddled Russian contingent out of the Rio Olympics. Not that all Russian competitors cheat, and plenty of non-Russian dope-heads will show up in Brazil, set new world records, win gold medals, and leave with their sponsorship deals safe and secure.

But this chance was too good to miss.

The World Anti-doping Agency left no room for doubt. Between 2011 and 2015, Russian competitors in 30 different sports were drugging themselves up to the eyeballs; ex-KGB officers were whisking the urine samples away, replacing them with pee collected in the local crêche. It was a no-lose situation.

This was an opportunity for the International Olympic Committee to take action against one of the big players, thus warning all the others that cheats will eventually be caught, and that the sanctions will be severe. Instead of which, the IOC passed the hot spud to the individual sports, leaving them to do the dirty work.

Says Le Canard, the IOC would rather make the war against doping look ridiculous than annoy the Russian tsar, Vladimir Putin, has chosen to side with the sponsors and their billion dollar deals rather than with those who want to play fair. It's a sad business.

Incidentally, the IOC offered free tickets to Rio to Yulia Stepanova, the Russian 800-metres runner who lifted the lid on the whole sorry mess, and who now lives in the United States. Stepanova wanted to compete, not watch, so she told them to sit on their tickets.