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French weekly magazines review 14 May 2017

A week is a long time in politics. This morning France has a new president and all the old problems.

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No prizes for guessing who's on all this week's magazine front pages.

If Emmanuel Macron, the man who will take up his new job as French president this very morning, seems to be the only story in town, the weeklies do at least offer a variety of approaches.

L'Express wins the dud headline award of the week, perhaps the year, with "He won". Sorry lads, we've known that since eight o'clock last Sunday evening.

Worse, the story that goes with the not-very-new-news headline offers to expose the "secret story" of an incredible campaign. The story is, I'm afraid, thin on secrets.

Fresh air, a few new faces, the usual suspects

Le Point welcomes the new leader as a breath of fresh air but continues to worry about the fact that more than half of French voters supported candidates it judges dangerous or hopeless in the first round of the presidential election. The new president is going to have a tough job to get that divided, angry and depressed electorate moving towards a brave new future.

Le Nouvel Observateur looks at the 100 personalities who are probably going to be crucial to Macron's attempt to reform the country. Most of them are usual suspects. And, of course, the real problems are likely to come from the tattered fringes of power, as mainstream Socialists and conservatives attempt to claw back some of the prestige they lost in this recent campaign.

Prophets of doom and gloom

Marianne warns the incoming president that "The hardest part is still to come". What sort of majority will Macron's parliamentary group have after next month's elections? Will he face a "third round" as those who suspect that the new president's liberalism is stronger than his socialism take to the streets to remind him that a lot of French people are poor, un- or under-employed, and deeply unhappy.

Le Canard Enchaîné wonders what François Hollande will have to say to the man who takes over the top job this morning. Remembering that Macron got his start in politics when Hollande took him on as part of the presidnetial staff, the satirical weekly suggests that the outgoing president will warn against taking on young advisors.

Macron doesn't seem in the least afraid of surrounding himself with gifted and articulate people. In fact, his choice of top-class team members is probably one of the main keys of his success.

Crucial post never filled, quietly dropped

Le Canard also notes the official demise of the post of Interministerial Delegate for Republican Equality and Integration, created by Hollande in March 2014 to help immigrants in their battle against discrimination and ensure the implementation of 28 measures to protect fragile new arrivals on republican soil. A post of crucial importance, we were assured at the time of its creation. Alas, no one was ever appointed to the job. And now the position itself has been quietly removed from the official list of government posts.

Say 'Thank you' to the nice man!

Marianne casts a critical eye on the Louis-Vuitton Foundation, the vast Frank Gehry-designed art gallery on the outskirts of Paris, billed at its 2014 launch as "a gift from Bernard Arnault to all Parisians". Arnault is the multi-billionaire owner of the luxury bag maker, with side interests in perfumes, fine wines, betting sites and Netflix, to name just a few.

With 38 billion euros to his credit the last time anybody bothered to count, Bernie is the richest man in France, and the 11th richest on the planet. So he could well afford the 800 million euros required to build his stone, glass and steel contraption and give it to the good people of Paris.

Except that he didn't.

According to Marianne, a series of cash-back deals and tax credits saw the French state cover 80 percent of Bernie's generosity, with tax payers actually contributing 610 million euros to the gift that Bernard Arnault so kindly gave them.

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