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French press review 6 May 2015

The French arms industry seems to be weathering the economic storm. A storm of a different kind is rattling the political teacups in the Le Pen household. Nicolas Sarkozy gives his verdict on the first three years of the François Hollande presidency. And the far left campaigns against the economics of debt.

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Weekly satirical paper Le Canard Enchaîné alleges that President François Hollande knew of the allegations of sexual misconduct against French soldiers serving as peace-keepers in the Central African Republic as early as July 2014.

Le Canard also wonders at government enthusiasm about the sale of French fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, a state where public decapitation is as frequent as sand storms. Seventy-six people have been put to death since January.

The good news, if you like, is that the French arms industry is doing very nicely. Not counting the 36 jets which India has said it is going to buy, probably, French weapons sales will pass the 15 billion euro mark this year alone. That's nearly twice the 2014 figure.

Le Monde and Libération both give pride of place to the family row currently rocking the far-right Front National (FN) party.

This sad and secular version of "King Lear", with daughter and party president Marine Le Pen trying to give her father and party founder Jean-Marie the boot, didn't start today or yesterday. It's back in the news now because the party's executive committee has voted to suspend the old man's membership and is planning to hold a further special meeting to revoke Jean-Marie's status as honorary president of the Front National.

The old man has taken various recent humiliations calmly, but being thrown out of his own party by his own little girl has pushed Jean-Marie beyond the limits of paternal patience.

Libération wonders if this sacking of the father will boost the daughter's political capital. Since Marine Le Pen's policy has been to "undemonise" her party, traditionally associated with hypernationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-immigration, racism, she could hardly do better than sack the demon himself.

But what has really changed, asks the Libération editorial. Not much. The FN is no longer anti-Semitic because Arabs have replaced Jews as the notional scourge; current FN policy on immigration is an unworkable nonsense; and the nationalistic drivel that underpins the far-right determination to take France out of the European economic system is laughable.

So, concludes Libé, the recent family drama is just that . . . blockbuster performances from two populist heavyweights, without real political substance.

Marine Le Pen has probably taken a step closer to the presidency she believes she merits, according to Libé, but she's still walking on broken glass.

Speaking of people who believe they merit the French presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy is on the front page of right-wing paper, Le Figaro.

Nick is not very kind to François Hollande, the man who beat him to the top job exactly three years ago.

Sarko sums up the Socialist presidency as "three years of pulling the wool over people's eyes . . . lots was promised, very little delivered".

Of his own UMP party, soon likely to be rebaptised "The Republicans", Sarkozy says it will be a brave new world of unity, fraternity and him as the boss. I'll bet François Fillon and Alain Juppé just can't wait.

Communiust L'Humanité notes that the far-left Front de Gauche grouping of parties will today use their annual 15 minutes of parliamentary fame to propose a bill rejecting European insistence on debt as the key to all economic ills.

Debt and its twin brothers, deficit, convergence criteria and internal financial restructuring, are the only orthodoxy for the economists in Brussels. L'Huma has been sweating into its blue collar for years in an effort to preach the gospel that debt is a normal, even a healthy, part of human existence.

By insisting on its impossible eradication, says trhe communist daily, the people of Europe are being strangled, bled dry and left deep in the metaphoric brown stuff. Local government, the state, hospitals, businesses are all obliged to reduce their capacities to save money. And that, says L'Huma, has led to massive unemployment and increased social injustice. It has done absolutely nothing to balance the national books. Only the Greeks have had the courage to open a different route to that which has consistently led to failure. How long the Greeks will stay courageous is a different question.

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