French press review 19 June 2014

Railway workers, energy, cycling accidents and law and order are among today's subjects..

The striking railworkers are off the front pages this morning, and currently floundering just above President François Hollande at the deep end of the national popularity pool. They complain that the media have contributed to a caricatural vision of their situation, misinforming a public already annoyed at having to walk to work. Le Monde attempts to put the record straight.

We can thus confirm that no French railworker has been paid a "coal bonus" since 1970, the date on which the last coal-fired locomotive was taken out of service.

No French railworker is paid a bonus to compensate him for the absence of bonuses. They do get something called a "working bonus," which sounds more than a bit dodgy. But Le Monde says it's a simple question of terminology, as is the "bag rule." Rail workers do not get paid for bringing their bags to work; the bag rule is the trade name for the right to stop work if one of their colleagues is attacked. And the working bonus is what those in the business call their salary.

They don't all retire at 50 years of age; certain train drivers are allowed stop work at 52 for safety reasons, other categories retire at 57.

Like the rest of us, they work 35 hours per week, for an average salary only slightly higher than the national figure.

The strike is now into its second week.

Ecology Minister, Ségolène Royal yesterday presented her grand plan for the French energy sector for the next three decades. Far from a fairytale France of wind farms and solar electricity, the minister has proposed a balance between nuclear energy and cleaner, more expensive, sources. The emphasis is on renewal and diversity, rather than on unrealistic radical change.

Speaking of the environment, everyone accepts that the average cyclist makes a zero contribution to climatic warming. And yet, according to the latest figures available on French transport habits, people on bikes account for only 2.7 per cent of journeys. It's not that they don't have bikes . . . there are 25 million of the bally things rusting in outhouses all over France. It's that cycling is damn dangerous.

Making just 2.7 per cent of trips, cyclists account for 3.4 per cent of those killed in accidents. In terms of kilometers covered, the average cyclist runs 23 times the risk of serious injury compared to the average motorist.

To survive, according to a report in Le Monde, people on bikes need to make themselves more visible. The report notes that Paris' free-access rental bicycles, the Vélibs, are a dangerous grey. Helmets would help too. And more considerate motorists.

Conservative paper Le Figaro is worried about law and order. This is because the legal commission in the French upper house yesterday voted to over-rule the National Assembly, accepting a raft of contentious ammendments to the already very contentious penal reform legislation. The Justice Minister, Christiane Taubira, wants to end overcrowding in the nation's prisons and, to that end, has suggested that a whole range of minor offences should be punished otherwise than by a jail term.

According to Figaro, "thieves, confidence tricksters, vandals, drug users and some dangerous drivers" will now be unleashed on the law-abiding rest of us. In fact, any crime carrying a sentence of two years or less can go unpunished, at the discretion of the judge. The president of the magistrate's union says the new law is a victory for an ideology based on soft treatment for criminals.

Jérôme Lavrilleux has been telling the police how the UMP party organised its massive financial fraud in order to finance the 2012 presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy. He's on the front page of Libération. What is remarkable is how many top people in the party knew what was going on, while managing to keep Lavrilleux's boss, Jean-François Copé, and Copé's boss, Nicolas Sarkozy, completely in the dark. A funny business, politics.

And then, of course, there's football, with the shock exit of the Spanish World Champions from the Brazilian World Cup qualified as "a shipwreck" by sports daily L'Equipe.

They're exaggerating of course, it was only a football match. But it is surprising to see the team which has dominated the global game since 2008 go out with a few bangs and a whimper.