French press review 17 June 2011

Friday’s French papers are dominated by tensions over Greece’s worsening debt crisis. France gets protectionist. French consumers feel the pinch. E coli hits France. Syrian refugees say their leader is killing them.

The economic newspaper Les Echos headlines on the heavy price to pay for the Greek chaos, as French president Nicholas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel prepare to hold crunch talks in Berlin on a second bail out plan for Greece.

 
Athens is facing a government crisis and violent demonstrations as it fights to stave off a bankruptcy that would place huge strain on the euro.

According to Les Echos, there is continuing squabbling within Europe about how to share the burden between taxpayers and the private sector. The paper underlines a desperate call issued by Sarkozy on the eve of the summit. Europe, he said “must leave behind national quarrels to rediscover their sense of a common destiny”.

The economic news daily La Tribune and the Catholic daily La Croix note the progress of protectionist tendencies creeping into France.

This follows a new survey published today showing that two out of three French citizens favour the erection of custom barriers and a rise in custom tariffs on Indian and Chinese products.

La Tribune raises hard questions about the essence of globalisation within the context of the debate about worsening economic conditions.

Communist Party daily L'Humanité slams the government for persisting on austerity policies that have aggravated inflation and worsened the people’s condition.

Le Metro also makes waning consumer confidence its cover page story. The freely distributed paper runs an exclusive interview with French Budget Minister François Baroin, in which he reiterates the government’s commitment to preserve the so-called “French social model”.

France Soir raises an alert about a rare strain of E coli bacteria that has broken out in France.

The headline coverage follows the admission of six children to hospital in the northern French town of Lille for food poisoning by suspected ground beef.

 
The case comes in the wake of a major E coli outbreak in Germany that killed 38 people and made 3,300 people ill in 16 countries. France Soir claims that the suspected frozen ground beef sold at the Lidl store as supplied by supply chain SEB. The group has since recalled all suspected produce. France Soir however quotes experts saying that the E coli outbreak in Lille did not appear to be linked to the German outbreak.

Le Parisien/Aujourd'hui en France investigates the food chain and wonders if anyone really cares about what had been going on. The newspaper takes a close up look at quality control mechanisms in place from the producer to the consumer and the experts in charge of implementing the operation.

Libération also examines the crisis in Syria as thousands of people flee their homes amid spreading army attacks on pro-democracy demonstrators.

“Our president is killing us” is the caption on Libé’s cover page story this Friday. It’s a quote from interviews granted the paper by Syrian refugees who have fled into Turkey. Libération reports that hundreds of civilians and defecting security officers have been killed since the anti-regime protests erupted in March.

More than 10,000 have been detained and over 8,000 more have fled to Turkey in the crackdown, according to the paper.
 

Libération has also been following developments in Libya. The newspaper caught up with Canadian army General Charles Bouchard who is commanding the Nato airstrikes. He told Libé the Atlantic alliance will remain in Libya until Kadhafi goes. Bouchard says Nato will not leave until its mission is accomplished.