In the papers
Friday, April 25, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
By Gragg Gulliver / France 24
Le Figaro (France)
Sarkozy : un ton nouveau pour les réformes
Sarkozy: a new tone for the reforms
Libération (France)
Je ne m’énerve pas, j’explique
I’m not getting angry, I’m explaining
The President looks a bit red in the face on the front page of Le Figaro, the paper most loyal to the governing UMP party. Perhaps that’s intended to convey warmth.
It certainly contrasts with the cover of left-leaning Libération, where Sarkozy looks rather cold, his smile decidedly forced.
The headline ‘I’m not getting angry, I’m explaining myself' is a reference to something he said in a decidedly unsuccessful press conference in January, which marked the beginning of his ratings slide.
So Libération’s suggesting nothing’s changed.
But both papers take the same basic line really: Sarkozy has changed his style but promised to press ahead with the reforms he promised.
Inside, Le Figaro’s editorial is wholly approving of the President’s interview. It applauds his determination to pursue the promised ‘reforms’, and also says that the President has finally achieved a genuinely presidential style. Moreover, says Le Figaro, Sarkozy dominated his interviewers.
Turn back to Libération, though, and there’s an article – ‘at the Elysée theatre yesterday evening’ – saying that effect was all part of the staging, with interviewers chosen by the Presidency to ask difficult questions, yes, but never too difficult. It also looks at the lighting and the set design, suggesting everything was calculated to give the president a more “presidential” style in a deliberate bid to buck the trend in the opinion polls.
But actually, Libération’s editorial is quite mild. It praises Sarkozy’s humility, saying that can only be a good thing, and concedes that any government would have had difficulty putting more money in people’s pockets given the current international financial conjecture.
On the other hand, says Libé, Sarkozy’s tax policy remains unfair and his immigration policy risks humanitarian tragedies. The editorial concludes that the décor has changed but the play is still the same.
L’Humanité (France)
Nicolas Sarkozy – une “erreur de communication totale”
Nicolas Sarkozy – “a total communications blunder”
It’s in the communist paper, unsurprisingly, that you find the harshest criticism of Sarkozy: l’Humanité seems to see it as an affront that the President should describe his tax policy as a ‘communications error’ – when according to the left, really it is a huge reward to the more privileged.
L’Humanité also attacks the one new policy initiative Sarkozy announced last night, which is the RSA welfare-to-work scheme, saying it’s going to be financed by funding from another scheme to help the under-employed, so it’s just stealing one person’s clothes to dress another.
Ouest France (France)
“C’est dificile, raison de plus pour reformer”
“It’s tough, all the more reason to reform”
Le Parisien / Aujourd’hui en France (France)
L’hymne au travail
Ode to work
It’s worth noting that Ouest France, which is actually the biggest selling French daily even though it’s a regional paper, is broadly favourable in its coverage, while Le Parisien / Aujourd’hui en France is pretty even-handed, with the front page headline “ode to work.” It leaves the editorializing to some specially invited readers, who went to the paper’s office to offer their comments, offering a reasonably representative cross-section of French society.
