French press review 10 June 2015

Manuel Valls rolls out a surprise "Small Business Act"  asSarkozy's Les Républicains pile pressure on him to pay tickets for a Falcon flight to the football Champions League final. And big names are in circulation as a hectic mercato season opens in France. 

Today’s front-page stories are all about Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ "Small Business Act", his offer to grant a bonus of 4,000 euros to small and medium-sized enterprises hiring their first employee for a year-long contract and to "lift obstacles, uncertainties and simplify life in the labour market".

Several national dailies have a rundown of the 18 measures unveiled by Valls after Tuesday’s cabinet meeting. They include a limit to the damages that can be awarded to a staff member found to have been fired unfairly. Short-term contracts can now be renewed twice instead of only once. However, the maximum time someone can be employed as a temporary staff member remains 18 months.

The government also suspended a number of the additional obligations that France’s 1.2 million small businesses face when they take on new employees. The prime minister reportedly told the cabinet on Tuesday that this measure did not apply to large companies or "serious labour law abuses" like discrimination or harassment.

Le Monde sees the measures as concessions made in a bid to chip away at the country's dismal unemployment figures. Jobless lines have grown longer under President François Hollande, who has pledged not to seek a second term in office in 2017 if he fails to reverse the upward trend in unemployment which stands at 10 per cent.

Le Figaro describes the gesture which is being badly received by the Socialist-led majority as audacious but as “just a first step in the right direction”. For the right-wing newspaper, Manuel Valls is still a long way from becoming a Tony Blair or Gerhard Schröder, the two reform-minded champions of left-leaning parties in Britain and Germany.

L’Humanité is fuming with rage after studying the package. These are 18 measures to boost job insecurity and to sell off the hard-earned rights of struggling workers, not to simplify people’s lives, it argues. Two union leaders consulted by the Communist Party newspaper dismiss the package as inacceptable and designed instead to serve the interests of the French business leaders' union Medef.

“Manuel Valls scores own goal,” headlines Libération.

Valls remains under fire for taking a government jet to watch the Champions League final over the weekend in Berlin.

The French prime minister, who was born in Barcelona, is a huge fan of the Spanish giants, who won Europe's most prestigious club competition against Italy's Juventus 3-1 on Saturday.

The right-wing opposition Les Républicains, formerly the UMP, have been calling on Valls to apologise and reimburse the cost of the trip, their anger further stoked by revelations that he took his two sons on the Falcon jet to Berlin.

Libération claims that the round trip to the German capital in the middle of the Socialist Party congress in Poitiers rubbishes President François Hollande’s promise of an “exemplary republic”. This is the first act of misconduct by Valls even though he had been expected to be beyond reproach, writes Libé.

For the paper, while there may be grounds to expect possible repercussions from “Barçagate” the newspaper says that the conservatives are not well-placed to attack Valls, the escapades of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, currently leader of the party being still very fresh in people’s minds.

And L'Equipe takes the lid off the secret plans nursed by Europe's football giants as the  end-of-season transfer opened on Tuesday. According ot the sports daily, Paris Saint Germain are working to bring Cristiano Ronaldo over to Paris after Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Marseille's André Gignac is in Lyon's driving mirror while Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezman is a priority to Bayern Munich.