French press review 16 January 2017

As expected, last night's second round televised debate by candidates running in the French Socialist primaries makes the headline this morning.

The issues discussed by the seven candidates included their positions on migration and on US President-elect Donald Trump ahead of the first round of voting next Sunday.

Former premier Manuel Valls, who is considered the leading candidate by several national polls, said he wants to "respect the right of asylum," and said France had "already faced the migratory crisis," according to Le Monde.

The paper headline reads “Manuel Valls - rather isolated in a more lively second debate” and it says that if the first debate, few days ago, had been “dull”, this one turned out to reveal how different the seven candidates are.

Le Monde outlines the main topics discussed last night. It says Manuel Valls stood alone when it came to the welcoming of migrants to France, nuclear power, education, the legalisation of cannabis, and secularism…

Left leaning Libération discusses whether the poll will in fact end up being a "tactical vote?” with the public voting to eliminate the candidate they don't want rather than the one they prefer. It also wonders whether the Socialist primary might be more successful than expected.

Libé says that the candidateshave not wasted time criticising each other.

But it also underlines that the winner of the Socialist Primaries stands virtually no chance of winning the Presidential election this Spring.

The paper says that because Francois Hollande is not participating in the primaries, the election has a whole different meaning.

One of the candidates, Benoit Hamon, sums it up nicel: “Hollande did us a great favour.If he was here, we wouldn’t be talking about the future, we would be prosecuting him for the five past years."

The candidates know they need to prepare for the post-Hollande era, including, in the long run, preparing for the upcoming legislative elections scheduled for June.

However, that is not at all how right leaning Le Figaro sees it. The editorial is rather damning - it compares the election to a tomb saying “Here lies the Socialist Party”.

It says Hollande dug the grave of the party, and today, the candidates can talk all they want, but they’re completely wasting their breath.

Le Figaro headlines with “Faced with the two independent candidates, Macron and Melenchon, the Socialists are struggling to find a credible candidate for 2017.”

It adds that yesterday’s debate went round in circles and only resurected old quarrels, especially, it says, when it comes to Europe.

Le Figaro says all the candidates tried to take the upper hand and it takes a swing at them, describing each of their programmes in a few words. Vincent Peillon wants everyone to get together. Manuel Valls, it says is the proud one, he’s already governed, so that should be enough.

Former Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg wants to defend the rights of the French people, Benoit Hamon doesn’t have the answer to everything, but “just” wants to have a goal and work at it, Francois de Rugy seems “serious”, while Sylvia de Pinel, head of the Radical Left Party, tries hard and Jean Luc Bennahmias, a center-left outlier and founder of the Democratic Front, seems to be there only to put them all in the mood.

Meanwhile, L’Humanité which headlines “Red alert”, does not pull any punches - it says that all the candidates have a rather short memory, only Valls takes responsibility for the past five yearsy; Hamon et Montebourg play coy, Peillon is on a mission and the rest are some sort of ecofreaks on the loose.