French press review 19 November 2009

by Michael Fitzpatrick

Article published on the 2009-11-19 Latest update 2009-11-19 06:51 TU

Yesterday, we were telling you that the financial crisis was over. Today, business daily Les Echos gets down to the dirty details, explaining that, in fact, the real problem is something called "industrial overcapacity".

Apparently, factories in Europe and the United States are running at 70 percent of their capacity, the lowest for four decades. During the boom, most producers invested in expansion, taking on extra employees. Now, those employees are on the dole and the new factories are empty because nobody can afford the goods they were intended to produce.

To add insult to injury, the Chinese have been doing exactly the same thing, massively investing in expansion, but cheaper and more successfully, so that they are reaping the benefits, despite a contracting world market.

Le Figaro's main story looks at how a large chunk of the French national loan will be spent: the government is going to borrow its way out of the crisis, getting at least another 35 billion euros in debt. At least 16 of those billions will be spent on universities and research.

Libération is entirely devoted to reflections by sixty professional philosophers on what it means to be French. Yawn!

Communist l'Humanité tells the government where to stick its own attempts to define French identity.

And Catholic La Croix wonders what the soon-to-be-nominated European President will do to earn his inflated salary.

Le Monde's main headline warns that population growth risks having a disastrous impact on the global climate.

With one and a half million children being born every week, there's a real danger that there may be as many as 11 billion human beings on the planet by the year 2050. According to the United Nations' population fund, such a figure will mean far too much carbon dioxide, too little water and not enough food.

Things are pretty bad already: last year saw record-breaking levels of carbon gas emissions, most of the new pollution coming from coal fires in the developing world.

Le Monde also debates the recent decision by Gabonese president, Ali Bongo, to prohibit the exportation of raw timber products. Among his election promises, Bongo undertook to make timber processing Gabon's second biggest industry, after the oil sector.

But international buyers are worried about the impact of the decision on supplies, on port traffic out of Gabon, about local processing capacity, and about forest management.

They might be getting ahead of themselves. Back in 2001, Ali's father, Omar Bongo, promised to transform 75 percent of Gabonese timber locally. Current estimates suggest that the actual figure is less than 50 percent.

Later this month, a French timber importing company will find itself in court, accused by the activist group Greenpeace of receiving stolen goods. This because the company DLH imported Liberian logs between 2001 and 2003, when the regime of Charles Taylor was subject to a UN embargo.