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French weekly magazines review 1 June 2014

François Hollande’s difficulties and Marine Le Pen’s victory are covered in this week’s magazines. There’s a look at a GI who got stuck on a church roof and how the US has prepared for zombie attack.

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The front pages of France’s weeklies follow a theme we have become familiar with over the past few days. Both l'Express and Le Figaro Weekend examine the question of François Hollande's presidency,  l'Express simply asking "Three more years?", referring to the time left of his presidency, whilst Le Figaro calls the president “the ghost of the Elysée” presidential palace.

Le Point's front page features Marine Le Pen, the major victor in last weekend's European elections, beating the equivocating president’s Socialists as well as the mainstream right opposition UMP, which is in disarray. Le Point describes the current situation as a "burnout".

Left-wing Marianne is more bold in its assessment of the situation and offers a solution: "Tout changer!" (Change eveything!), meaning dissolve the two major parties - the Socialist Party and the UMP - turn the economy on its head - putting people before profits - and reconstruct the republic.

Perhaps easier written than done.

Many of the inside pages of Marianne and the other weeklies are dedicated to the panic taking hold at the Elysée, the crisis in the UMP due to the scandal surrounding its former leader, Jean-François Copé, in which millions were allegedly paid to a communications agency and also the sweeping victroy of the Front National, as we have been hearing throughout the week.

These multiple crises mean that France really is in a bit of a mess and they are going to rattle on for quite some time to come.

This year sees commemorations marking the world wars as this is the centenary year of the outbreak of World War I and the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings at the end of World War II. L'Express takes a look at one of the quirkier stories from the landings. Since that time, the small town of Sainte-Mère-Eglise with a population of only 1,500 people, has become "a symbolic epicentre" for liberated France, receiving 200,000 visitors a year.

The reason for this fame?

On the night of 5 June 1944 at about midnight, an American parachutist dropped through the sky over the village... only to find himself dangling by his parachute from the spire of the village church. Stuck on the side of the building and totally exposed to enemy fire, he plucked a knife out of his backpack to cut himself free despite the 12-metre fall below him and the fact he was already suffering from a broken foot. But, as John Steele fumbled with the knife in the pitch dark, the knife plummeted to the ground. There was nothing he could do but wait... one hour, two hours, three hours. He was finally rescued by the enemy, German soldiers who had been on watch in the church tower and he was taken prisoner before escaping several days later.

The town now has a hotel named after Steele and the local museum pays homage to him. Even Hollywood picked up his story to reenact that fateful night in a sequence in the film Red Buttons with John Wayne, Sean Connery and Henry Fonda - even if the sequence only lasts 140 seconds.

L'Express's article uncovers some of the embellishments to this story that Steele cultivated over the years up until his death in 1969. But, given that 12-13,000 parachutists landed on the northern coast of France during the Normany landings, this particular story has really caught the imagination, once even inspiring the villagers of Saint Mère-Eglise to install a dummy representing Steele and his parachute on their church’s belltower.

From one invasion to another, even if this second one has not yet happened. Marianne reports on just how well the United States military, sometimes described as the world police, are prepared for all eventualities: nuclear war, guerrillas landing in Florida, an asteroid hitting Earth and... zombies and alien invasions.

The serious bimonthly Foreign Policy magazine first picked up on an unclassified military document called CONOP 8888, also known as "Counter-Zombie Dominance", about how the US would fight back against "evil magic zombies". They are not the only zombies that are a threat, vegetarian zombies also threaten massive deforestation and the elimination of crops essential for human survival.

Marianne is particularly tickled by the disclaimer attached to the document - "This plan was not actually designed as a joke."

Navy Captain Pamela Kunze, a spokesperson for Strategic Command, has acknowledged the document exists but insisted that the zombie survival guide is only a creative endeavour for training purposes.

So rest assured, when the zombie apocalypse is upon us, the USA has a plan! But, concludes Marianne, the military's plan in case of biological terrorist attack is just to kill those infected to avoid an epidemic.

God bless America, declares Marianne.

 

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