French weekly magazines review 18 September 2016

French commentators take up the ravages of falsehood in Western democracies in the wake of the Donald Trump phenomenon in the United States and overbidding as campaigns for the 2017 Presidential primaries take centre stage in France.

DR

 Le Point undertakes a diagnosis on democratic decay taking place, what it calls "the metaphysical melancholy and deep feelings of regression invading the old and new western world". That it claims is happening "on the back of the disarray of the middle class, the identity crisis, the Islamist threat, and the job destroying digital revolution".

The right-wing publication takes up the "Donald Trump phenomenon" in the United States, as the Republican candidate looks close to becoming the next President of the United States, going by the latest opinion polls, which would be disheartening for a democracy, according to Le Point.

From the magazine's point of view, "Americans must be very sick to feel the urge of handing their country to Trump", described by Le Point as a “loud-mouthed, ready for everything and good for nothing populist".

According to the magazine, "Trump's economic program resembles that of French sovereignists from the far right National Front, the extreme left anti capitalists and the “frondeurs” or Socialist back bench rebels". "Tighten your seat belts", warns le Point, "if Trump ends up being elected".

Le Canard Enchaîné satirises about the "disastrous" attempt by Hillary Clinton’s campaign team to conceal her pneumonia after her collapse during the highly sensitive commemoration of September 9/11.

As the video went viral on social media, l’Express noted that even if it was just a clip, it appeared at an "emotionally charged moment for Americans", on a day of national remembrance when America needed to show its power to the world.

It took seven hours for her campaign team to explain the origin of her malaise, initially saying she was suffering from heat exhaustion.

The magazine argues that the oversight only confirmed the impression that "Mrs. Clinton is definitely a woman who doesn’t tell the truth". Such views were even likely to be stronger among voters hurt by her branding of Trump’s electorate as a "bunch of deplorable sexists, homophobes, xenophobes Islamophobes and everything you can imagine.

L’Express can't believe that it took the Clinton campaign seven hours to explain the malaise suffered by the candidate and the clumsy response they gave. According to the weekly, that was enough to revive the widespread view that Mrs. Clinton is definitely not a woman who tells the truth.

Welcome to the post-truth era, bellows the left-leaning magazine l'Obs. The journal holds that the expression defining the dangerous tendency in Western democracies to no longer trust fact-based political debate but falsehoods hammered out with confidence first appeared in Ralph Keyes new book "The Post Truth Era".

It couldn't be timelier, observes l’Obs, in a season when “wrong affirmations are deliberately being made with the intention to deceive”. The left-leaning magazine cites as an example, the false claims by the pro-Brexit campaign that Britain was paying 350 million pounds to the EU every week and that the money would be refunded if the UK withdrew from the union.

This week's Le Point warns against a perceived sense of "political Trumpization" taking place in France as campaigns get underway ahead of presidential election primaries. According to the magazine, some of the candidates have been infected by the virus and in the journal's own words, are proposing one law every day or every second on every single issue in the news starting with the burkini.

The publication says things have gotten to a stage where it has started wondering if "politics isn't a business too serious to be left in the hands of politicians".

And taking about the overbidding taking place, Le Canard Enchaîné singles out ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy who it claims has rolled out a formidable machine in his bid to win back the Elysée palace he lost four years ago.

The satirical weekly explains that despite the legion of prosecutors hot on his heels over the luxurious 2012 campaign which cost 40 million euros, the man is simply incurable. It points to his decision to rent a 400 square meters new campaign headquarters a few blocks away from the Eiffel Tower, which is rented at 20,000 euros per month.

With the Presidential elections just eight months away, Marianne claims that political pressure is being piled on the public broadcaster France Télévisions. In a matter of weeks, it says, charges that the media house had become Sarkozy's TV had been substituted by counter claims it was now President Hollande television.

On a larger note, left-leaning Marianne warns that the increased presence in the media of large fortunes such as Vincent Bolloré, Patrick Drahi, Bernard Arnault and Bergé-Niel-Pigasse trio comes with a heavy cost for pluralistic journalism.

Marianne discussed the problem with renowned French journalist Brice Couturier. He says the treatment of economic and social issues with ideological bias by some commentators renders the governance of the country impossible.