French weekly magazines review

The French weeklies are dominated again by domestic politics and the ever nearer race for the presidency in 2012.

It will be everyone against Sarkozy and the hunt is open, according to Le Point. The centre-right journal makes some exclusive revelations about candidates who have tossed their hats into the ring: the Radical party leader Jean-Louis Borloo, who has defected from the ruling coalition, TV presenter and ecologist Nicholas Hulot, ex-prime minister Dominique de Villepin and leftist politician Jean Luc Mélenchon.

Le Point has a lavish account of the very hectic political week here in France and explains that the rush for the Elysée was sparked by Sarkozy’s weakening presidency.

The latest Ipsos tracking poll confirms Sarkozy’s continuing slide. He scored just 29 per cent in an approval rating, two percentage points down from March.

There is an interesting article about the Ushuaïa nature journalist Nicholas Hulot, who launched his bid for the Elysée on Wednesday.

Le Point points out the irony to the fact that the brave adventurer who swam with sharks, descended the Zambezi river, and rallied in the North Pole was facing a perilous battle with a species he hasn’t seen before - the political animal.

Hulot sat down with Le Nouvel Observateur editors to discuss his long battle to save planet world and what pushed him to run for the office of president.

He also discusses his political manifesto and campaign strategy, Sarkozy’s ecological failures, his complicated relations with the Greens and where he stands vis-à-vis the right and left.

The left-leaning Nouvel Observateur also weighs the presidential plans of ex-environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo who walked out of the ruling UMP party.

The journal reports that the “Zozo” has been the subject of intimidation and even a smear campaign orchestrated by apparatchiks in the ruling party after he turned down appeals from President Sarkozy for him to stay.

The popular Radical party leader is angered by the drifting to the far right of the UMP, according to the journal. Le Nouvel Obs claims that Borloo was fully aware of the buzz created by his defection and insists that he moved on to try to resolve a great misunderstanding in place in France.

Borloo is still to say clearly whether he will run for the presidency and that has left the commentators scratching their heads.

The satirical paper Le Canard Enchaîné predicts it won’t be long before he goes back home, tail between his legs.

On its part, the right-leaning Le Point brands Borloo as “Sarkozy’s favourite submarine”, contrary to conventional wisdom in France.

The journal quotes one of Sarkozy's friends, saying that he arranged the separation so that Borloo would go get the centrists' votes, and that Sarkozy sees Borloo as a “nice” player and trump card he may need later.

Former prime minister Dominique de Villepin published his own agenda for France this week, but didn’t say if he will enter the presidential fray in 2012.

Le Point says Monsieur de Villepin’s self-styled revolution is nothing more than a new step in his fight to the death with Sarkozy.

The former prime minister awaits the verdict of the Clearstream trial in which he is accused of smearing Sarkozy in an attempt to sabotage his presidential plans.

Anne Sinclair, the wife of Socialist presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is the cover story this week’s L’Express.

The journal profiles the charismatic ex-prime time TV news presenter fired by the TFI network after her husband declared his bid for the presidency in 2007.

She tells the journal about her ambitions for her husband, her role by his side and her networks. She is the one who gave the closest hints about Strauss Kahn’s presidential plans, when she said she doesn’t favour her husband extending his term at the IMF.

France’s headache with immigration is another topical issue in L’Express.

The magazine examines controversial plans by interior minister Claude Guéant who is bent on setting legal immigration ceilings of 20,000 per year, with just 15,000 authorized family reunions.

The scheme has been denounced as dangerous by the Patronat, the French business chief association.

L’Express reports that some five million immigrants live in France today, some 200,000 without papers, and warns that while the government has maintained its expulsion rate at 30,000 annually, the current efforts won’t reap anything until there’s a bold, coherent long-term integration policy for its population of immigrant descent.

The French weeklies look back on the victory of the UN-backed president Alassane Ouattara in the battle for Côte d’Ivoire.

Le Monde Magazine zooms in on the downfall of the Gbagbo regime and the dramatics events that marked the 10-day military operation to arrest him.

The journal publishes a captivating photograph of Laurent Gbagbo under detention at Ouattara’s Golf Hotel headquarters in Abidjan. Some of the photographs are telling about the violent treatment of Gbagbo’s supporters.

Le Nouvel Observateur runs a three-page article about President Ouattara’s soldier- in-chief and Prime Minister Guillaume Soro. It’s Soro’s hour of glory, writes the journal, which describes him as the mastermind of the failed coup against Laurent Gbagbo in 2002.

According to the left-leaning journal, Soro is the armed hand of the president and commands the forces that launched the final assault on Abidjan and committed massacres in the west of the country.