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French press review 12 September 2014

America’s coalition of the willing against the hard-line insurgents close to achieving their goal of carving out an Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iraq and Syria attracts the most comments in today’s French dailies.

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French President François Hollande arrived in the Iraqi capital Baghdad Friday and Le Figaro says he is expected to unveil France’s strategy in the war against the decapitators of the Islamic State (IS), ahead of the international conference on peace in Iraq scheduled to open in Paris on Monday.

The plan could include possible air strikes which French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hinted about on Wednesday, according to the right-wing newspaper.

The visit comes a day after US President Barack Obama announced US plans to launch an air war against the jihadists, who are accused of a string of war crimes and atrocities as they get close to installing a fundamentalist caliphate in large portions of Iraq and Syria. For Le Figaro, while the objective of the airstrikes is crystal clear, nobody knows what will follow.

The Iraq of 2014 is not Vietnam or even the Iraq of 2003, writes the paper. Le Figaro says it is compelled by recent events to believe that Obama, who would have preferred not to go to war, is being dragged into one. For the paper, the Nobel peace laureate, who wanted to end two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is compelled by the senseless brutality of the IS and their al-Qaeda-backed al-Nusra rivals to put on his military fatigues again.

For Le Monde, while American public opinion is now convinced that the Islamists pose a serious threat, the operation is complex and full of uncertainties  - about the role confided to Iran, Syrian President Bashar al Assad, who Washington’s allies on the ground are and the role of regional Sunni powers.

Denis Bauchard, a senior researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) speaks to the Catholic daily La Croix about the geostrategic consequences of the US-led air strikes against the Islamic Insurgents. He observes that there is a favourable perception of the operation by Arab public opinion.

But Le Figaro says Obama needs to careful, given that Qatar and Saudi Arabia are suspected of bankrolling the Syrian rebels and Turkey is the transit point for most of the would-be jihadis wanted by Interpol. La Croix voices concern about the political capital the regimes in Iran and Syria may gain from their support of the military operation.

Liberation is amazed by the self-determination mania that has gripped Europe after 1.8 million Catalan nationalist demonstrators filled the streets of Barcelona on Thursday to celebrate the Diada, the national day of Catalonia. Some of the nationalists waved the blue and white Scottish flag at the mass rally to demand a vote on the region’s self determination. Scotland's vote on 18 September could see it break from the United Kingdom.

The Spanish government has declared illegal and unconstitutional a referendum organised by Catalan political parties on 9 November on Catalan independence or devolution. Le Figaro warns that the agitation could have a domino effect on crisis-hit Europe, which is experiencing a rise in populism.

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