French press review 3 October 2010

Silvio Berlusconi may have won a vote of confidence in the Italian parliament last week, but that has not saved him from a savaging from the Vatican for, of all things, telling a Jewish joke on TV last Friday.

It's not a very funny joke, but that's not why the Catholics are so hot under the collar. The pope's police have reminded Sly Silvio that he's the main man, that his every word and action have a broader ressonance and can cause irreparable damage.

The Vatican newspaper, l'Osservatore Romana, went as far as suggesting that the Italian Prime Minister had offended the memories of the six million victims of the Holocaust.

And the joke? It concerns a Jewish family who hide another Jew for an extortionate rent, and never bother to tell him that the Second World War is over. Silvio is clearly a barrel of laughs.

There's good news for druids on the front page of Le Figaro. After more than 2000 years of conflict with Christians and others, the bearded believers in harmony with nature have finally had themselves recognised as a religion in England. It took a special commission five years to decide that the stone age hippies who venerate the sun, earth, thunder and lightning, are close enough to believing in a supreme being to merit the same tax concessions as other religions, even if druids don't believe in God. There are 350 English druids, and several million of them worldwide. Like the members of every other religion, they clearly believe in money.

French president Nicoals Sarkozy is not a popular man right now, and he's not even a druid. Le Monde publishes the results of an opinion poll showing the 72% of voters are unhappy about the course being steered by the nation's helmsman. Sarko's security policy, and his muscular treatment of Roma gypsies, has won him a few new admirers on the shaven-headed fringes of the extreme right, but he's losing ground in the centre. And he won't get re-elected in 2012 without huge centre-right support.

Business daily Les Echos does have a bit of good news, for anybody who might have a few centimes left in the bottom of an old sock. The euro is doing very nicely, thank you, having grown in value by 7% in the course of last month, currently being worth more US dollars than at any time since last March.

There was another national strike here in France on Saturday, against pension reform.

Under the headline "Determined", communist l'Humanité says nearly three million people took to the streets to protest against government plans to make them work longer. They'll be back on the streets for more of the same on 12October

Right-wing Le Figaro gives the government figure of 900,000 demonstrators, a 10% decrease on the last day of action. But, says Figaro, the real issues are elsewhere. The government remains firm on the essential elements of the reform . . . the retirement age will be 62, not 60, and you'll have to work until you're 67 if you want a full pension. That's final. But the Labour Minister, Eric Woerth, says he is prepared to tinker with side issues.

The trade unionists meet today to decide what to do next, with the option of unlimited strikes in the transport and energy sectors on the agenda, and winter just around the corner. Silvio Berlusconi would probably have something hilarious to say about that.