French press review 9 December 2016
French papers runs out of breathe as atmospheric pollution in France worsens.
Issued on:
Breathing problems
Liberation rings the alarm bells about the unprecedented levels of fine airborne particles known as PM10 in Paris warning that it won't be long before Parisians stop breathing.
To make its point Libé culled excerpts from The Expanse, the American space opera / mystery science fiction drama television series, based on one of James Corey's novels about orbital station workers condemned with their families to breathe air polluted by the company for which they work.
According to the paper this is the fate reserved for future generations of Planet Earth's inhabitant if the authorities continue to with the absurd policy of the alternating ban on registration plates as the sole measure to tackle the problem.
Libération wonders why the authorities won't just introduce a system by which some people will have to hold their breath while others breathe on.
Atmospheric pollution is definitely the health scandal of tomorrow, warns Le Monde, stating that bad air quality is responsible for 50.000 premature deaths in France every year.
The paper describes the widely flouted number plate restrictions as a fiasco, especially after the breakdowns that crippled the railway and subway transport services during the worst smug in Paris in ten years.
“It’s a question of life and death”, agrees Les Echos. According to the publication the fine airborne particles we inhale are just as lethal as alcohol which kills 130 French citizens every day. The paper warns that nothing will change unless punitive measures are taken to address the problem.
L'Opinion expresses dismay at the so-called shoddy measures proposed by Environment Minister Ségolène Royal to address the emergency such as coloured tax disks on vehicles and tax credits and bonuses.
What she did, according to the economic newspaper, is follow the example set by her predecessors who took up their jobs with an over-inflated ego despite lacking the spine, courage and will to deliver.
This contributes to the systemic failure in the strategic state's understanding of the problem which instead of investing in cleaner energies opted to stick with colossal subsidies and green taxes for polluting diesel engines.
CAHUZAC sentenced to jail
Several papers react to the sentencing of former French budget minister Jerome Cahuzac to three years in prison for tax fraud and money laundering amounting to millions of euros.
The Paris court also handed Cahuzac’s ex-wife Patricia Menard a two-year jail term for her role in stashing millions of euros from the couple's lucrative hair transplant business in accounts abroad.
The scandal which saw the 64-year-old plastic surgeon lying to parliament repeatedly before confessing was the first of a series that tarnished Socialist President Francois Hollande's government.
La Croix describes the verdict as very harsh despite conceding that Cahuzac's moral offence was particularly serious, considering that the man who went hiding money in fiscal havens was actually in charge of cracking down on tax fraud.
L'Humanité looks back with cynicism at Cahuzac's meteoric rise to power, his lies and his fall arguing that the tree should never hide the forest of tax evasion.
The paper calls for the convening of a COP-type world tax-evasion conference to decide on binding resolutions that will end the era of empty rhetoric.
According to L'Union, Jérôme Cahuzac was caught in his own trap by the fact that through his attitude he tore into shreds the certainties of his impunity and the first plank of the "beyond reproach" Republic Francois Hollande yearned for, on coming to office.
For La Charente Libre, three years in jail can't be enough and Jérôme Cahuzac needs to be raised to the dignity of "great state servant", for unconsciously inspiring the state to arm itself against the highly-placed cheats roaming the corridors of presidential palaces and the boards of companies.
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