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French press review 28 July 2017

Did a French parliamentarian yesterday compare Penelope Fillon to a pig?. How did Jeff Bezos get to be the world's richest man and why did he last only one day at the summit? And did Emmanuel Macron make a mistake in organising this week's Libyan peace initiative?

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Le Figaro looks at government efforts to clean up French political life.

The right-wing paper notes that the National Assembly yesterday voted in favour of ending the practice under which some parliamentarians and senators employ members of their family as assistants.

The recent high-profile cases involving Penelope Fillon, Bruno Le Roux and Richard Ferrand will thus go into the history books as the last of their kind.

Henceforth, anyone elected to parliament who employs his or her partner, concubine, family member or child (including the children of the partner or the concubine) will face three years in jail and a 45,000-euro fine.

The senators took a while to swallow the bitter pill. They voted against the reform earlier this month. Before being brought to their moral senses and finally voting in favour of the proposals, mainly because of the violence of public reaction against their understandable desire to hold onto a nice little earner for the missus or any child struggling to break into well-paid employment in the non-political sector.

During yesterday's debate in the National Assembly, some voices were raised in defence of the old order. Right-wing MP Julien Aubert regretted the fact that particular cases could lead to a universal law. "It's like swine flu," he said, continuing with scant regard for the feelings of, say, Penelope Fillon, "One pig is sick and so we killoff the entire herd."

Another right-winger, Damien Abad, asked what would be the status of Brigitte Macron, wife of the French president and in line for some as-yet-to-be-determined legal status as a state employee.

The good news is that all is not lost. One parliamentarian can still take on the wife, child, mother, father and grandparents of another, in exchange for a similar kindness from the elected beneficiary.

As Le Figaro so touchingly summarises the situation, the prosperity of parliamentary households and the peace of Christmas dinners are thus assured.

You know the French saying to the effect that, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

The brief, wealthy reign of Jeffrey Preston Bezos

Speaking of prosperity, all papers this morning note the brief rise of Jeffrey Preston Bezos, the boss of the internet sales outfit Amazon, to the position of the world's richest man. Jeff's personal fortune is reckoned to be 78 billion euros.

Sadly, his place at number one in the wealth league lasted barely a day. On top of the world last Thursday morning, Jeff had been overtaken by the man he displaced, Bill Gates, by Thursday evening.Since the two men's fortunes are based on their share holdings in their own companies, all it took to knock Jeff out of the A spot was a slight fluctuation in the share price of Gates's Microsoft.

In case you haven't heard, Bezos doesn't know what to do with all his cash and has launched an internet campaign to collect ideas from net surfers. Apparently, it is not good enough to send him your bank details and a polite request. I've already tried.

Diplomacy in one country?

Le Monde looks back at this week's diplomatic coup in which French President, Emmanuel Macron wrung a ceasefire deal out of the two main heavyweights on the Libyan political scene. But the centrist paper's editorial laments the fact that the French leader failed to involve other key players, like Italy and the United Kingdom.

Le Monde says discussions like this are always good news, even if the results remain largely theoretical. It's better than fighting.

But Libya remains a European problem, and a major one. Since the end of the Moamer Kadhafi regime six years ago, this vast country which borders Egypt, Tunisia and the Saharan Sahel region has become an exporter of arms, terrorists and refugees. The stability of the Sahel and the security of the Mediterranean basin are deeply compromised as a result.

To say nothing of the everyday nightmare that is the lot of most Libyans, with no central government, no administrative structures and no oil revenue, the whole sorry lot in the hands of various bands of gun-toting crazies.

It was a big mistake to leave Italy out of these talks, says Le Monde. The former colonial power is now in the front line in the battle against illegal immigration, and has made huge humaitarian efforts in Libya itself. And France won't be able to solve this complex problem on its own.

What happened, the centrist paper wonders, to Macron's much-vaunted European vision?

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