French press review 2 May 2013

Disappointment and anger are this morning's key words after May Day demonstrations throughout France yesterday against a background of unemployment and economic crisis.

The terms appear together on the front page of communist L'Humanité, part of a headline explaining the mood at yesterday's 1 May demonstrations.

There were 160,000 participants, according to the trade unions; about half that many according to the police. The point of the whole party, of course, was to celebrate 1 May, international workers' day. But, against a background of almost record unemployment and continuing budgetary austerity, the mood was far from festive.

Disappointment on the front page of right-wing Le Figaro as well, where the owner of one of the largest French supermarket chains warns that government proposals to increase consumer spending power will do nothing more than push up prices.

I'm not sure which of anger or disappointment is the dominant note on the front page of business daily, Les Echos. There, we learn that the bosses of the top 40 French companies have seen their spending power reduced for the second year in succession.

The 40 best-paid salary earners in France shared 93 million euros last year, at an average of 2.3 million per skull. That's a four per cent reduction in real terms, most of it due to voluntary cuts or deferments of bonus payments by men and women who wisely feel that giving theselves massive pay hikes might further annoy some of those they have just sacked.

Should we be angry or disappointed about Claude Guéant.

Who?

You remember. He's the grim-looking former interior minister under Nick Sarkozy. Currently some judges are trying to find out if he was also Sarko's bagman.

In other words, the lad whose personal bank accounts were used to channel money from diverse and not always reputable sources into the Sarkozy election coffers, they suspect.

Pish, says the man himself, it all came from ministerial bonuses and the sale of a couple of paintings by a chap called Andries van Eertvelt, who is even less well know than Claude van Guéant. Paintings which normally go at 140,000 euros a piece, according to experts at the Artprice company.