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French weekly magazines review 18 May 2014

The French magazines sprang up in arms this week after last week’s virtual silence despite the international indignation about Boko Haram’s plans to sell the 276 girls kidnapped from a northern Nigerian school almost a month ago.

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Le Point denounces the barbaric weddings Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau vowed to organize in the video in which the Jihadist sect claims responsibility for the abductions. It expresses revulsion at a recent so-called prayer Shekau made. "I swear by the holy name of Allah, that I will slaughter you,” he threatened, adding that their religion and way of worship from now on, is to "kill, kill and kill."

Le Nouvel Observateur and L’Express both have profiles of the blood-thirsty Boko Haram leader.

L’Express writes, crazy guru Shekau has been the craftsman of the Islamic sect’s killing frenzy, doped by misery, corruption and impotence of the Nigerian military.

For Le Nouvel Observateur Shekau is nothing short of a fanatic and cranky psychopath. According to the weekly he has several times been declared dead by the Nigerian military but always sprang up in different videos to defy what he describes as the infidels. In another provocative recording Ibrahim Shekau spoke about how good he feels “executing the enemy his God chooses for him”, just like the “immense pleasure he feels slaughtering chicken and sheep. He is currently Africa‘s most wanted man, wanted dead or alive in Nigeria and with a 7 million dollars American bounty on his head.

Le Figaro magazine says that by exhibiting the unfortunate children, Boko Haram has crossed a Maginot line in the perversity of media exploitation notorious in hostage takers. It argues that the immense indignation provoked in the international community hands Boko Haram a priceless shop window, which enable him to achieve a double objective of terror and recognition.

Le Canard Enchaîné satirizes about the impressive international mobilization, provoked by the kidnapping and forced conversion of the girls into Islam. This is crystallized in the slogan "bring back our girls," it says. The satirical weekly jokes about the ravages of Michele Obama’s White House card backing the campaign noting that it has sparked the creation of a First Ladies’ league in France. Le Canard reports that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Valérie Trierweiler staged a protest in Paris, which, was almost joined by Julie Gayet, the alleged short-time presidential mistress. Le Canard Enchaîné argues that the First Ladies’ role in the campaign probably pushed Barack Obama, François Hollande and David Cameron to dispatch Special Forces, drones and planes to Nigeria to try to find the girls.

It also probably inspired the French President to convene this weekend’s regional summit in Paris on security in Nigeria, according to Le Canard Enchaîné. It explains that France’s obligation to intervene in a country which doesn’t fall in France's colonial backyard is quite problematic. It points to a French intelligence report qualifying the Nigerian military as unviable, poorly equipped for anti-terrorism operations, undisciplined and notorious for its brutality.

For Le Canard Enchaîné, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan finally resorted to issuing a distress call to the West for at least two reasons: the military has proved clearly incapable of dealing with hostage takers and the demonstrations around Nigeria calling for the release of the girls are undermining his authority and damaging Nigeria’s international reputation.

Find out how a school of discredited eurocrats have led to the detestation of Europe in this week’s Marianne. According to the left-leaning weekly, on the eve of crucial European elections next week to elect a new European parliament, the 28-nation community is very sick, with economic and social blindness worsening the already serious condition of political and diplomatic impotence. One of the shocking examples of the squandering taking place in Brussels is the 50 billion-euro Roma integration fund.

Marianne reports that millions of euros are unaccounted for due to bureaucratic failures, cronyism, and fraudulent transactions by Bulgarian officials. Marianne borrowed a quote from one of the so-called followers of "consensual politics" responsible for the blind drift taking place in Brussels. It is from Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council and on one occasion he compared the European Union with a crazy locomotive, noting with awkward precision that the crazy machine will stop if it derails, not the EU.

Le Nouvel Observateur still puzzled by where President François Hollande is heading, asked some of his former cabinet ministers what they retain the most about their time by his side. Some speak about a solitary, impatient tactician hard to work with.

Le Point believes the honeymoon of the new French Prime Minister Manuel Valls is over as he is locked in a race against time with Leftist vampires in the Socialist party dying to drink his blood.

And L’Express evokes some affairs which are threatening to mess up the special relationship ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his long-time chief of staff Claude Guéant enjoyed during their time in government. It reports that Guéant the former Secretary general at the Elysée, is at the heart of several judicial dossiers which are likely to damage Sarkozy's reputation.

According to the right-wing newspaper, he is due to be summoned by French judges soon in the Bernard Tapie arbitration affair in which the fiery tycoon received 403 million euros from the state in 2008 after the disputed sale of his company. Police have reportedly completed investigations into his alleged embezzlement of up to 300,000 euros while serving under Sarkozy in the Ministry of Interior, and his role in the Kadhafi regime’s alleged funding of Sarkozy’s 2007 re-election campaign.

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