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French press review 13 February 2016

Today's French presslooks at the current European refugee crisis, a possible Eurozone implosion and the Paris attacks.

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Today's Le Figaro front page is  about a possible new European crisis. The paper describes four different things that could go wrong for the Euro zone.

First, there's Southern Europe and the "instability in Spain" and governments refusing to implement austerity measures in Greece and Portugal.

Secondly, there's the possible Grexit and Brexit, thirdly the fact that European banks are under too much pressure from financial markets.

But the worst thing, according to the daily, is that the European Central Bank is at the limit of what it can do to stimulate growth.

"All of this doesn't mean that we'll see another 2008 crisis, but it's a free warning" says Le Figaro's front page editorial. A warning to whom? Spain, Greece, Portugal and France of course.

Libération devotes its front page to the victims of the Paris attacks. "How to live with the 13th of November" reads the paper's headline.

The daily talked some of the survivors of the attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris last November. Libé explains how some of them decided to create an association, and a Facebook page called Life in Paris, to share their experiences.

It's not a coincidence that the left wing newspaper chose to talk about this subject today. Rock band Eagles of Death Metal will play at the Olympia tomorrow - their concert was interruptued by four terrorists last November. Four terrorists who killed 89 people at the Bataclan concert hall.

The band has invited the victims of the attacks to join them at Tuesday's show, but not all of them have said yes. "A lot of them will be there to live through 'another ending'" explains Libé.

Catholic daily La Croix devotes its frontpage to Syria.The newspaper has a long - and interesting - report about Syrians fleeing their country.

Its frontpage editorial is all about refugees, and criticises Prime Minister Manuel Valls' stance on the issue. The catholic daily didn't like what Valls had to say when he was visiting Germany over the weekend.

"We can't accept more refugees" said the French Prime Minister on Saturday.

This is shocking explains La Croix, first and foremost because "Europe and France can accept more refugees". And it's hard to disagree with the daily: France only took in a few hundred refugees, out of the 30 000 it pledged to welcome last year.

"Our moral values should push us to more generosity towards people fleeing war" it says. "Plus Manuel Valls only proposes, as an alternative, to let Syria's neighboors deal with issue, despite the fact they are already overwhelmed" it continues.

"We need to find the way to solidarity" it concludes.

L'Humanité worries that journalists could be out of job soon. The communist daily has an interesting article about Syllabs, a robot that can write up to 2.000 articles... every second.

And we're not talking about the distant future here: Le Monde used it during the last French elections.

According to L'Huma, it's almost impossible to spot a difference between articles written by Syllabs and articles penned by actual human.

But journalists shouldn't worry too much about this explains the Communist daily. Those Robots mainly write about simple and factual news by using dispatches and data, such as elections results.

And yes, this is a good thing because it gives reporters more time to analyse and report without having to rewrite uninteresting wires. "Robots are not expected to report on the ground, or in a war zone anytime soon" concludes L'Huma.

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