Les Echos (France)
Le G20, un outil et un pari – The G20, useful tool but also a gamble
 

France’s business daily said that last weekend’s G20 summit did not give way to any brave decisions or dramatic surprises. However, it says, something happened in Washington that would have been hard to imagine a few months ago…For the first time, everyone agreed that the free market system was the one to be adopted and, what’s more, a set of rules needs to be imposed on that same system.

The Times of India (India)
World markets skeptical about G20 action plan

India’s main English-language daily says the meeting heeded a warning from India and other developing countries to reform institutions like the IMF and the World Bank in order to give them a greater voice.

It claims that in much of the American media, the big story of this summit was the shift in balance of power towards Asia, and primarily the continent's giants, India and China.

South China Morning Post (China)
World’s economic future depends on cooperation
 

Beijing welcomes the arrival of developing countries at the top table of intenational decision-making, according to the South China Morning Post.

It said that for too long, wealthy nations have gone it alone in making decisions that affect the rest of the world. In 1944 they set up the World Bank and IMF. In 1975 they set up the G7. Now, in 2008, top-level global cooperation with developing countries has finally happened and it must continue. The global power base has shifted, the paper says.

Le Figaro (France)
Parti socialiste: le fiasco du congrès - Socialist Party: the fiasco that was their Conference

A veritable fiasco according to the Figaro… France’s Socialist Party is unable to decide on a leader, cannot agree on policies and is at risk of splitting. In the newspaper’s editorial, it says that they’ve all gone mad within the party and cites Segolène Royal’s dramatic declaration at the end of her speech, “Some day this party will end up loving itself.”

The only problem – the party doesn’t love her.

Libération (France)
Vanqueurs – Winners
 

In its editorial, Libération says the real winners of this party conference were all but the Socialists.

“Champagne for all!” it declares. Champagne at the Elysée, at the centrist Modem Party’s HQ and probably some champagne cracked open amongst the hard left too, because everyone can effectively cut off a slice of the divided Socialist cake!

L’Humanité (France)
Mélenchon: l’autre gauche peut être majoritaire – Mélenchon says the alternative Left could win a majority
 

Speaking of the hard left, France’s communist paper prints an interview with former Socialist Party member, Jean Luc Melenchon. He has left the PS to found a new ‘Party of the Left’.

For Melenchon, the Socialists have made too many compromises with capitalism. With Ségolène Royal at the helm, he argues, the Party would be taken in a centrist direction.

A new party of the left would be closer to the Communists than the centrists apparently – an attempt to return to socialism’s true ideals.

 
The Irish Times (Ireland)
Voters may approve new Lisbon Treaty, poll reveals

According to this Irish daily, a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty would be carried by the Irish voters.

This has been a hugely divisive issue in Ireland. The rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by Irish voters has stopped the project in its tracks and put plans in Brussels for further streamlining of EU institutions on ice.

In Dublin, government calls for a second referendum have angered many voters who see it as fundamentally undemocratic. Irish voters are reminded of when they went to the polls a second time to ratify the Nice Treaty, a document they had rejected first time round at the ballot box.

Attitudes have changed, if this Irish Times poll is to be believed, 43 percent of voters would give the thumbs up to the Lisbon Treaty if it was put to another vote, while 39 percent would vote no and 18 percent remain undecided.