French press review 30 June 2012

The eurozone makes the headlines today, with several articles on the recent EU summit in Brussels. The papers pit France's President François Hollande against Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, as the two attempt to find common ground on how to deal with the eurozone debt crisis.

The front-page story of the day is the surprise late-night deal reached at the two-day EU summit in Brussels to fight the eurozone debt crisis. EU leaders agreed at the meeting to inject emergency funds amounting to 120 billion euros to support ailing banks directly and to ease pressure on governments' debt burdens. “Mrs Merkel caves in to Southern Europe” headlines Le Monde.

The paper explains that it took nineteen summits for the eurozone to strike a deal that is likely to reassure investors and the nervous markets.

Spain is set to receive direct support to recapitalize some of its banks, and according to Le Monde, this will spare Europe of the accusation that it is the main cause of the global economic recession.

Le Figaro, which had voiced pessimism about the outcome of the summit, welcomes the measures taken to reverse the spiralling crisis. The right-wing newspaper says euphoria is sweeping through the European financial markets, with the DAX 30, the CAC 40 and the markets in Milan, Madrid and even Athens all posting gains of more than 4 percent, with the euro rising two cents against the dollar.

Le Figaro doesn’t believe France's President François Hollande had a hand in the brokering of the landmark agreements at the Brussels summit. The paper argues that his tactics of trying to bypass the German Chancellor Angela Merkel was quite irritating to the European Council, and enabled the prime ministers of Italy and Spain to steal the limelight.

Libération will never see eye-to-eye with Le Figaro and this issue will be no exception to the rule. Libé says the European score now is Hollande: 1 – Merkel: Nil. The left-leaning newspaper posts airbrushed photographs of Hollande and Merkel wearing their national team shirts at the Euro 2012 football tournament in Poland and Ukraine.

Libé underlines that it is due to pressure from Hollande, Mario Monti and Mariano Rajoy that the German Chancellor was forced to accept the insertion of a growth and bank union mechanism in the fiscal pact, which she had opposed up until now.

And Aujourd’hui en France/Le Parisien gets on its bike for a few hours to start off the Tour de France. They wonder what France's prospects will be this year, as the world’s greatest cycling race hits the road. The paper says all eyes will be on Thomas Voeckler, hoping he can improve the fantastic race he led at the Tour de France in 2011.