The ‘nerve attack’ suffered by the President has given rise to discussion over the extent to which Presidents and Prime Ministers should be honest about their state of health. Le Figaro recalls that in 1941, Winston Churchill was struck down by a heart attack while visiting Franklin Roosevelt at the White House. This didn’t stop him mounting a moral battle against Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Despite health problems, his ability to analyse, speak passionately and demonstrate great energy in rallying the world against the Nazis were unaffected, the paper notes. According to this article, the only legitimate information that a President owes the French is to tell them that he’s in a physical and mental condition to govern and make big decisions in full lucidity.

Libération notes every detail is important in this sort of an affair. The fact that Sarkozy left hospital is symbolically important. But the micromanaged information coming out of the Elysee was dealt a blow by Frédéric Lefèbvre. The UMP Party spokesman spoke about a “cardiac accident”t which the Elysee had done everything in its power to dispel as a cause for the President’s collapse. According to the official line, the collapse had nothing to do with the heart. Lefebvre had to desperately back peddle saying he used the term cardiac in “referring to the health of all the French people.” Clearly this makes no sense whatsoever. Lefèbvre had hoped to get a ministerial post but this gaffe is casting serious doubt on that.

To the Tour de France and an article in Le Monde about, you guessed it… doping. In contrast with the 2008 Tour, there wasn’t the slightest revelation about positive drug tests at this year’s event. However the President of the French Agency for the Fight against Doping, Pierre Bordry, is not convinced. Two new products were more than likely used, he believes.
One is called Hematide and is given to the cyclists through blood transfusions. The second is Aicar which acts on muscle tissue and burns up fat. Bordry said he was struck by how thin some of the cyclists were. These are new generation drugs and the tests to detect them are in the development stage. They could be ready by September or October. The race between sophisticated drugs and the possibility of detecting them is still on!

Also in Le Monde, Fleet Street, the famous London centre of all things media and journalism-related is now but an historical reference it seems. Agence France Press has now moved to Tottenham Court Road, the last big media outfit to move out of the famous street. In 1945, all the big papers had their offices on Fleet Street. By the end of the 1980s, many had left because of rising property prices, traffic problems and because of new technologies. In 2005, Reuters moved out. Now the lively and drink-infused conversations of journalists in the pubs of Fleet Street is but a distant memory, the paper notes.

Aujourd’hui en France /Le Parisien publishes a photo of the maverick Socialist MP Manuel Valls with his mouth covered in tape. The snap first appeared in the Sunday edition of El Pais. The Barcelona native is posing as the most high profile critic from within the Socialist Party. Martine Aubry wrote an infamous open letter to him two weeks ago more or less saying “Shut up or leave the party”. This photo is a reference to her bid to have him silenced. There’s little chance of that. For the first time in its history he says, “the party no longer represents any hope.”

On the front page of Ouest France, there is an image of le Mont Saint Michel as it will soon be. A huge renovation operation is to begin and will finish by 2014. Most notably it will make the French landmark into an island once again. The building of a bridge and a dam will stop the build up of silt around the UNESCO World Heritage site.