French press review 20 May 2017

The more things change the more they stay the same? Or maybe not. The two sides of the coin in today's French papers.

I suspect you've heard more than enough from the French newspapers in recent days about the make-up of the new French government and the leadership style of President Emmanuel Macron.

So, something a little different this morning.

Yesterday, President Macron made his first official trip outside Europe.

He was in Mali in west Africa to meet Malian leaders and visit the French military base in Gao, from where French forces continue to help in the fight against Islamist insurgents.

Accompanied by Sylvie Goulard, the new Defence Minister, and Jean-Yves Le Drian, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, the new President declared his "determination" to continue France's commitment to the struggle against jihadist groups in the Sahel region.

What's interesting about this is that Macron will be doing some things differently from his predecessors in the Elysée Palace.

But Paris' post colonial involvement in Francophone Africa, known as "Françafrique, look certain to continue.

Which will please more than a few African leaders and French business interest.

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All the papers have the story, of course.

Reporting from Macron's press conference the centrist paper le Monde quotes him as saying "France has been involved from the beginning by your side and what I have come here to say to you in a very clear way is that it will continue to be so in the same way,"

What's more, the icing on the FrançAfricque cake as it were, Macron said "We have seen in recent months, Islamist terrorists are organising, regrouping, are federating and therefore we will be intractable."It was," he said, "indispensable that we accelerate."

You may recall that French forces intervened in Mali 4 years ago to counter the advance of jihadist groups which threatened the capital Bamako.

The security situation remains precarious - with national and foreign forces regularly targeted.

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The beneficiaries of Françafrique may be delighted with the President Macron. French journalists are not.

On Thursday, the new team in the Elysée Palace announced that they intended to handpick the journalists who cover the President.

This has outraged journalists and bosses at newspaper, magazines, in radio and television.

In a letter to the President yesterday a Who's Who of media luminaries said it was not for the President or his staff to make this decisions. That should be left to the newsrooms, as it always has been under previous Presidents.

As you'd expect, there plenty of coverage of this row, and it's hard to see how Macron can profit from it.

Le Monde carries a piece headlined "Tensions between the press and the Elysée."

Citing yesterday's trip to Mali, the paper says ""It is not in any circumstance for the Elysee to choose those of us who have the right or not to cover a trip."

Quizzed about the row on France 2 television government spokesman Christophe Castaner offered what sounded like a climb down, saying "obviously it is not the President of the Republic who must choose the journalists who cover a particular subject."

Le Monde concludes that "It will be necessary to await the next Presidential trips to see if the ambiguity is lifted or persists.

"More broadly," the paper says "editors wonder, will these tensions fade after a few adjustments? Or are they revealing a new, harder relationship, after a very open Hollande era?"

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Left-leaning Libération reprints the protest letter in full and follows it with extracts from the Elysée's response to the NGO Reporters Without Borders which led the signatories.

The Elysee said it had not sought to "impose any journalist rather than another" during the visit of the head of state in Mali.

Those journalists who are worried can be reassured: the Elysée does not intend to do editorial work," the letter said

Its approach was not to restrict journalists, it was an approach of openness".

As with US President Donald Trump in the White House, it's early days in the Elysée Palace for Emmanuel Macron.

A few missteps are inevitable.

And, given his stellar career to date, one imagines he's a quick on the uptake.