French press review 9 March 2017

Would it really be a good idea for France to leave the European single currency? What is behind North Korea's nuclear sabre-rattling? Which French presidential candidate did not accept a public charter to clean up national political life? And what's the future of the nuclear energy sector?

What would leaving the euro mean for France? That's the question posed by the top story in right-wing Le Figaro, and the answer is . . . nothing good.

You'll know that the idea of abandoning the continental currency is at the heart of the far-right National Front's economic program.

The experts are all against, predicting a public debt crisis, the departure of foreign funds, major difficulties for French banks, and the end of the world for most French savers.

Worse, warns Le Figaro, a French departure would probably deal a fatal blow to the euro, possibly even sound the death knell for the entire European Union.

It's still all very theoretical, of course, since Marine Le Pen would have to be elected and then organise a referendum on the euro. But big continental businesses, with their debts currently owed in euros and very sensitive to any risk of change, have, according to Le Figaro, started to evaluate the effects of a return to the franc.

The right-wing daily quotes National Front leader Marine Le Pen as saying all the negative opinions come from economists and political analysts who work for the banks, and is part of what she calls "the fear strategy," an attempt by the rich and powerful to scare and befuddle us, the little guys.

Just as the experts were proved wrong in their predictions of catastrophe after Brexit, says Le Pen, so they exaggerate the impact of an end to the single currency.

The latest opinion poll, published this morning, shows Madame Le Pen overtaken, for the first time and marginally, by centrist Emmanuel Macron in first-round voting intentions.

Trump and Kim Jong-Un . . . more than a clash of hairstyles

Le Monde's editorial looks to the Korean peninsula, suggesting that the missile tests earlier this month by the north have pushed regional tensions into the red zone.

The centrist daily says the tests are part of the strutting strategy of Kim Jong-Un, the man who rules Pyongyang with an iron fist and a seriously bad haircut. He wants the world to know that he's got dangerous weapons, and the capacity to fire them into the neighbours' front gardens. Which has given the neighbours a dose of the jitters.

The US, South Korea's chief ally, have used the tension to explain the rapid deployment of the unfortunately-named Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system. That has got the Chinese worried about American ambitions in the region. And then there's the saga of the Malaysian murder, using neurotoxic chemicals, of the bad haircut's half brother. Le Monde wonders if that was not another "test", this time aimed at telling the world that North Korea has nastier things than nuclear bombs in its arsenal.

It is time for Beijing and Washington to behave like global leaders, says the centrist daily.

The Chinese have got to end their ambivalence towards Kim Jong-Un; Donald Trump has got to get off his tweet machine and start acting like a president.

There's no escaping the F-word!

I thought I was going to make history and possibly the Guinness Book of Records this morning by finishing a press review without once mentioning . . . François Fillon.

Alas, left-leaning Libération has proved my undoing. Their main headline reads "Everybody gets on board . . . except one." The paper is trying to promote transparency and honesty in political life. So Libé asked all candidates in the running for next month's presidential first round to commit themselves to the rectification of the moral and financial loopholes surrounding parliamentary bonuses, the employment of family members, and such like.

François Fillon is the only candidate who did not reply.

Nuclear ambitions for numbskulls

Catholic La Croix looks at what the various candidates for next month's first round think about ending French dependence on nuclear energy. The question is on all the political menus, since green is good whatever an individual's party affiliation. And it's an easy win, since a five-year mandate will be history before any real change can be made in a field which is environmentally, technically and economically complex.