Claws out over Miss France title

Le Parisien asks on the front page if he is on his way out- they point out he’s very popular among the party’s base and there’s no clear candidate to succeed him.

France Soir has the same story- they headline that the PM is preparing his future after the job- he’s widely expected to lose it in the reshuffle planned for next month- but the paper says he’s clearly not ready to retire from politics.

Libération’s front page says Fillon has cut the umbilical cord- the French prime minister is often an ideological disciple of prime minister but the paper says Fillon is carving out his own space here and making it clear he disagrees with some of Sarkozy’s policies.

Their editorial inside says the job of PM is a delicious hell- when Fillon started in the job he looked sidelined as sarkozy took the initiative on every question and hogged the headlines- but now Fillon has turned that to his advantage.

Le Figaro has an exclusive interview with General David Petraeus, who directs US troops in Afghanistan- he says the dynamic of the war has moved from the Taliban’s hands to NATO’s – he denies the war is being lost and says the objective isn’t to implant a Western system of government- but to allow Afghans to take responsibility for their own security.

The Miss France competition is also making headlines in the regional La Voix de Nord newspaper- this is taken quite seriously in France.

This was run by a woman called Genevieve de Fontenay who’s quite a celebrity here- she got annoyed with production company Endemol last year, saying it encouraged former contestants to appear in TV reality shows and pose nude, which she called cheap and tacky.

Because Endemol own the rights to the competition they fired her- but she’s fighting back.