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French press review 2 March 2017

There's no getting away from François Fillon, the lame-dog right-wing presidential candidate whose goose might finally have been cooked by yesterday's decision by French judges to investigate the terms and conditions under which members of Fillon's family were employed as parliamentary assistants. Fillon says he'll fight on to the end. The end is nigh.

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The F-word is all over this morning's front pages . . .

"François Fillon appeals to the people," reads the main headline in Le Figaro.

"Fillon denounces a 'political assassination'," says Le Monde.

"Fillon assassinates French justice," is the way left-leaning Libération sees the latest twist in the saga.

"Fillon to fight on," is Catholic La Croix's take on yesterday's events.

Communist L'Humanité says yesterday's decision by French judges to investigate the former prime minister and conservative presidential contender, suspected of paying members of his family for parliamentary work they didn't do, puts additional pressure on Benoît Hamon and Jean-Luc Mélenchon to come to an agreement and avoid dividing the left-wing vote. Especially since far-right leader Marine Le Pen could also see herself hauled before investigators in a separate case involving the alleged use of European money to pay her French employees.

Financial paper La Tribune has reaction to Fillon's decision to carry on regardless, but its main story concerns yesterday's dramatic reaction on global stock exchanges to US President Donald Trump's Tuesday evening promise to invest one trillion dollars in infrastructure, and to reform tax laws.

The Dow Jones index on Wall Street shot past 21,000 points in a session for the first time in history; the French CAC 40 narrowly missed a 5,000-point high at the close. The exchanges in London and Frankfurt both showed huge gains, and record closing prices.

It's not all down to Trump, of course. Much of the euphoria can be explained by the suggestion by the American central bank, the Federal Reserve, that interest rates may be increased at the next monetary policy meeting, due on 15 March. That means that the Fed really believes the corner has been turned and that the world economy is about to start growing again. American Treasury bonds are now selling at their highest return since August, 2009, suggesting a high level of investor confidence in the US economy.

As for Fillon, La Tribune publishes a list of reactions to yesterday's decision by the man on the mainstream right to remain in the presidential race . . .

The centrist Union of Democrats and Independents party has decided to suspend its support for Fillon. Some of his own party notables have jumped ship, saying the candidate's ethical position is no longer tenable. Emmanuel Macron says there should be absolutely no legal tolerance for errant politicians, wondering whether François Fillon has lost his nerve or simply lost contact with reality.

One final irony before moving on to other matters, several papers note that the troubled François Fillon is the only one of the presidential contenders to have collected the 500 signatures of elected representatives required of every candidate. He actually has more than he needs, with no fewer than 738 officially validated signatures.

Benoît Hamon has 184 names to his credit, Emmanuel Macron has 229, Marine Le Pen just 25. They all have until 18 March to get to the magic number of 500.

And, practically lost in the noise being made by and about François Fillon, Emmanuel Macron has launched his long-awaited presidential programme.

Tabloid paper Le Parisien offers a sneak preview of the 32-page document.

If elected, Macron intends to make politics a more transparent business, drastically reducing the possibility of conflict of interest. MPs will no longer be allowed to sit on company boards or act as consultants, and they'll have to pay tax on everything, including their allowances. MPs' expenditures will have to be justified. It will no longer be legal to employ family members as parliamentary assistants.

Macron promises not to change the retirement age, nor reduce the amount paid to pensioners. If you have paid your dues for 42 years, you can retire when you get to 62 or earlier, if you started work in your teens. He wants the same retirement rules to apply to everyone, public and private, regardless of work category or employee status, and he says he'll launch negotiations to that end with the bosses and the unions as a priority.

On education, Macron believes primary school to be the key. Since 20 percent of kids leaving the junior level can't read, write or count properly, is it any wonder they go on to fail in secondary school. The remedy is to leave more freedom in the choice of teaching methods to the teachers, rather than impose a nationwide approach which has clearly failed those most in need of help.

And on security, Emmanuel Macron hopes to reconcile the angry young people of certain suburbs with the Republic, by offering them a route to success through school, work and integration into the economic community.

As François Hollande might remind the young contender, the difference between a promising program and the real world is vast.

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