French press review 14 June 2011

Berlusconi gets the political stuffing knocked out of him, Libération's journalists look ridiculous, top French bosses are paid 18,000 times what some unemployed receive and does a Paris suburb need UN peacekeepers?

Poor old Silvio Berlusconi is all over the place this morning.

The Italian prime minister recently had the political stuffing knocked out of him when his right-wing coalition lost several big cities in local elections . . . last weekend, the nation turned out in force to reject referendum proposals supported by Berlusconi.

Catholic La Croix says the Italian leader has been given a "second warning" by the electorate.

Business daily Les Echos says Silvio's had his hands slapped.

While right-wing Le Figaro sticks the boot in with "Italy gives Berlusconi a bashing".

In the weekend referendums, Italians voted against a return to nuclear electricity, against paying more for drinking water and against legal immunity for sitting politicians.

That last bit is really bad news for smiling Silvio, who is gamely gritting his expensive dental work. He faces at least four major court cases, from alleged corruption to alleged sexual abuse of a minor and practically everything in between.

The result of the weekend vote means that Berlusconi can no longer say he is busy with government business as an excuse for refusing to appear in court. But how it will all work out in practice remains to be seen.

Yesterday, for example, Silvio was supposed to be in a court in Milan, to answer questions about one of his alleged misdemeanours. But the PM was otherwise engaged, welcoming his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Does the referendum result mean that, in future, visiting heads of state will have to wait while Berlusconi beats about the bush with the legal chappies? Probably not is the most likely answer.

And, if his past performance is anything to go by, you can bet the price of a diamond-studded pizza that Silvio won't be put behind bars any time soon.

Libération is a special edition, redesigned by the fashion designer, Jean-Paul Gaultier, to celebrate his 35 years in business.

The result is quite strange, with real news squeezed in between photographs of the paper's journalists, wearing copies of Libération.

They look, frankly, ridiculous. And while I'm prepared to admit that a good journalist remains a good journalist, even when dressed in nothing but black socks and page ten of last Tuesday's paper, the image does have an impact on the way I read the story.

And, while I think of it, there's a double-page colour advertisement for Gaultier's perfume for men in the middle of today's Libé, and a page advertising his furniture designs as well.

From the ridiculous to the less-than-sublime . . .

The lowest social security payment here in France is 467 euros per month.

Communist L'Humanité is angry to announce that ten bosses of big French firms last year got more than 18,000 times that amount as take-home pay, and that the salaries of the top directors have increased by at least 15 per cent over the past two years.

The best-paid French head honcho, the boss of the dairy products operation Danone, earns nearly six million euros each year. That's 1,052 times the minimum government handout.

And they earn their big salaries, says L'Huma, by enforcing wage cuts and sacking workers.

Popular Le Parisien reports from the Paris suburb of Sevran, where the mayor recently said there's an urgent need for a contingent of United Nations peacekeepers.

Despite a massive police presence, huge swathes of Sevran remain no-go areas for the authorities. The police have effectively lost the battle against the drug dealers and the armed gangs who protect them.