French press review 11 November 2009

by Michael Fitzpatrick

Article published on the 2009-11-11 Latest update 2009-11-11 10:19 TU

The front page of Le Monde looks resolutely forward this morning.  The paper's main story concerns the human race in 20 years' time, when fossil fuels will still account for 80 per cent of global energy consumption, despite the fact that those very same fossils - gas, petrol and coal - are the main culprits in global warming.

Such insistence on pollutants, according to former US vice-president Al Gore, who has just published a book on the subject, is the result of political laziness.

Le Monde's other forward perspective is an economic one, as the paper analyses expert predictions that French growth figures next year might beat the government's miserly estimation of three-quarters of a per cent. The French economy could grow by as much as 1.5 per cent next year.

The European Commission is warning death and destruction if member states don't get their rampant national deficits under control within the next two years.

French Prime Minister François Fillon says they'll get it sorted out by 2014 or thereabouts. Germany and Spain are also zillions of euros over the red line set by Brussels, and it's clear that they couldn't give a sprout either.

Right-wing Le Figaro's main story is the row between France and the EU on budgetary control. The Figaro headline could be roughly translated as "Paris tells Brussels to stuff it". The government has a cunning plan anyway: they're going to borrow money to pay the debt.

Le Figaro also looks at the bulging problem of French obesity. There are now six and a half million seriously fat people in France, only half of the population tipping the scales at the medically accepted weight for height ratio.

The right-wing paper also sends birthday greetings to Mikhail Kalachnikov, the 90-year-old inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle. Mikhail has recently been honoured by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, having once been decorated by Josef Stalin, the dude who exiled Kalachnikov's family to the frozen wastes of Siberia in the 1930s.

Kalachnikov still goes to the office four days a week in his native Ijvesk, and says he's working on a new version of the machine gun which has sold no fewer than 100 million units. Kalachnikov originally wanted to be a poet.