French press review 20 December 2016

French newspapers this morning all lead with Berlin, Ankara, Donald Trump and Christine Lagarde as their headlines.

All the papers give the latest update on the attack that took place in Berlin, during which 12 people died and 48 were badly injured. The police said on Twitter that the lorry driver had been arrested and that a passenger died from his injuries.

Le Monde, on its online edition rather than paper one since it went to print before the attack, headlines with Berlin, saying “A lot of reasons to think this was a terrorist attack”, as Germany's Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere pointed at right after the event.

Libération, Le Figaro, L’Humanité, Les Echos all have a headline in the line of the “Carnage at Berlin's Christmas Market."

Speaking of attacks, both Le Monde and Le Figaro have articles on the Thalys attacker, with Le Figaro saying that the EU Commission should, on Wednesday, put forward ways to control the illicit money used to finance terrorists.

But all the papers also give the latest regarding the death of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, who was shot in Turkey’s capital, Ankara.

A Turkish policeman crying "Aleppo" and "Allahu Akbar" has been identified as the killer, without any clear connections to any terrorist group, say the papers.

The incident happened a day after protests in Turkey over Russian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took place.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin already spoke over the phone, apparently both agreeing that it was an act of "provocation" and that those who wanted to harm relations between the two countries "would not achieve it."

Verdict in Christine Lagarde’s trial

Left-wing Libération headlines "All that for that?" It says “guilty but no sentence," since she was indeed tried on charges and found guilty of "negligence by a person in position of public authority", which apparently cost the French government €404m when she approved an award to businessman Bernard Tapie for the disputed sale of a firm.

The icing on the “hypocrisy” cake says Libé, is the fact that there will be no trace of it in her criminal record. Libération begs the question: can you really come under fire when you hold such a high political position?

Right-wing Le Figaro says this verdict will undoubtedly come across as “suspicious” to the ordinary citizen’s eye. It then goes into detail on how the tribunal“did its job, no more, no less”.

Le Monde says that despite this she was found guilty of negligence, she will not appeal. However, the paper points out she might come out wounded as head of the IMF, especially since the institution really looks after its reputation since the Dominique Strauss-Kahn… affair.

Trump makes the headlines - again

More from the man who tweeted Monday evening “We did it! Thank you to all my great supporters, we officially won the election despite all of the distorted and inaccurate media!”

Les Echos has more on Trump, although it questions whether the electoral college is still up to date? It was set up by America's founding fathers as a compromise between allowing Congress and the people to elect the president, and Les Echos also reflects on whether it could ever be changed.

Libération the day before had an article saying “What if…” implying there was one last chance to oust Donald Trump with the final election process.

Today though, they have decided to go with Trump's reaction to the Berlin attack. He blamed the deadly truck crash in Berlin on “Islamist terrorists”, saying they targeted “innocent” Christians as they “prepared to celebrate the Christmas holiday.”