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French press review 25 November 2016

A debate about last night's television debate between the two survivors in the French right-wing presidential primary. Was it cool, calm and collected, or were the blows low, dirty and largely unseen? And what is really going on in the eastern sector of the Syrian city of Aleppo?

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They've been at it again. Alain Juppé and François Fillon, I mean. The two lads who face off on Sunday 27 November in the decisive second round of the right-wing presidential primary, were on TV last night, debating.

Le Figaro thinks "serenity" is the best word to describe the overall tone, saying that the two men managed to avoid clashing on any crucial question.

The right-wing daily notes that Juppé called Fillon "François", while an obviously tense Fillon insisted on calling his opponent "Alain Juppé".

Le Monde says it wasn't all that cosy.

The two clashed on the question of the length of the working week, with Fillon denying he wants people to work up to 48 hours per week, Juppé saying it should all be worked out by negotiation within individual businesses.

Turbulent talk about abortion

They also hit a spot of turbulence on the question of abortion, particularly sensitive for Fillon who is a practising Catholic. He says he won't try to change any existing legislation and has a thirty-year record of always voting in favour of laws giving women access to safe termination of unwanted pregnancies.

Left-leaning Libération is disappointed that the promised boxing match degenerated into a polite discussion between old chums.

Five hundred thousand fewer jobs in the public service over five years is one of Fillon's key ambitions. Juppé says it can't be done.

Multicultural France a fiction for Fillon

Fillon thinks a multicultural France is impossible. Those who choose to live here must live by local standards, not import their own. Juppé has a less resolutely nationalist view of the need for integration and has indeed been rechristened Ali Juppé by certain islamophobic web sites.

Catholic La Croix says the evening passed off quietly.

Business daily Les Echos says the debate was serious with no more friction than was necessary. The same paper notes that a second consecutive month of diminishing numbers out of work increases the probability that François Hollande will stand for a second term.

Europe's squeezed middle feels the squeeze

Separately, the business paper notes that the European middle class is an endangered species.

According to the International Labour Organisation, the middle class is vanishing to the tune of a 2.3 percent decrease between 2004 and 2011. And, in case you were wondering, the gap between rich and poor is still getting wider.

Where war crimes are the order of the day

The headline of Le Monde's editorial is deeply troubling.

"In Syria, war crimes are now the norm," says the centrist daily, going on to describe conditions for the 275,000 inhabitants of the eastern sector of Aleppo, the second largest Syrian city, scene for the past week of an indescribable struggle between 8,000 rebels and the forces of President Bachar al-Assad, boosted by Iranian, Iraqi and Afghan mercenaries.

Le Monde says that the expression "fire storm" was never more literally true, as civilians attempt to survive under a deluge of missiles, rockets, mortars, cluster bombs and cannisters of poison gas.

The fact that the use of the last two items in that list is completely illegal is neither here nor there. Al-Assad wants to re-take control of Aleppo, and nobody seems to care about the means used, especially since some of the fighters the Syrian president is trying to dislodge are Islamic fundamentalists.

Russian and Syrian aircraft have purposly targeted hospitals, schools, markets and feeding centres. The strategy, which has worked in smaller urban areas in Syria's five-year civil war, is to drive the civilian population out, leaving the various rebel militia without any means of support. This time, many civilians seem to want to stay, or are being prevented from leaving by the rebels. So the regime has decided to reduce their part of the city to a smouldering ruin.

Not only is the rest of the civilised world powerless, it is also terribly silent.

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