French press review 21 March 2014

The papers are all about the late money time show of ex- French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Nicolas Sarkozy came out swinging about a Stazi-type police snooping into his private life in an exclusive interview with Le Figaro on Thursday. The stinging piece was intended to be his rebuttal to mounting corruption claims against him that caused the court-ordered wiretapping of his phones.

Sarkozy, speaking for the first time since his 2012 re-election defeat claims it was now his duty to break this silence, because as he put it, the sacred principles of our Republic are being trampled on.

Sarkozy slammed the leaks about the affairs dogging him as politically motivated and denied any desire to return to politics. The rage of the former French leader was palpable when he pointed a finger to the judges, policemen, the only people who had access to the files as the ones who violated judicial secrets and leaked transcripts of the phone taps to newspaper Le Monde and the Mediapart website.

For Sarkozy, Justice Minister Christiane Taubira and her colleague at the Ministry of interior Manual Valls must be kidding, when they denied knowing nothing about the phone taps. Nicolas Sarkozy sprays bullets in all directions, headlines Libération. The left-leaning newspaper says the former President’s letter to the French people was unprecedentedly violent as he launched a blistering attack on every one, from judges, the police, to the Socialist government and even the media.

The press had been weighing the impact of the uproar over the so-called Sarkoleaks on Sunday’s local elections in France. La Croix sees Sunday’s vote not just as likely to be determined by local stakes but also as the first return to the ballot box for voters since the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections. According to the Catholic daily, this is why the verdict is bound to be reflected by the national political climate.

Libération draws voters’ attention to what it describes as the abstention trap. It notes heightened fears of demobilisation especially within the left-leaning electorate pointing that the Front National stands to reap the prize of record abstentions in several cities.

L’Humanitéissues a call to arms against austerity. The first round is on Sunday bellows the Communist party daily as it launches an appeal for a massive plebiscite for Left Front candidates who according to the paper constitute a bulwark against the Socialist government’s liberal policies.

A CSA survey for Le Figaro predicts a strong surge for the Conservatives, in towns with more 3,500 inhabitants their candidates credited to claim 49 percent of ballots cast against 41 percent for the left-leaning parties. In today’s editorial Le Figaro belittles Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s appeal for a republican front so as to shut out the Front National calling it a smoke screen and a pathetic stratagem by a party in distress. It describes the remarks by Ayrault as a ploy by the Socialist party to trip up the far-right Front National branded as a pal of the left for over 30 years.

After 12 days of an all out search for the missing Malaysia airline, Le Figaro reports that experts are now concentrating their effort on the Indian ocean after Australia released satellite photos of possible debris in the southern Seas.

And Libération says there will soon be no place to hide for tax evaders in the eurozone, following a deal by the 28 EU members on the automatic sharing of bank data about private savings accounts by 2015.