French press review 19 December 2014

The French press offers massive approval to US President Barack Obama’s announcement of a historic rapprochement with Cuba with White House sources saying that a visit by Cuban President Raul Castro to the United States is a possibility.

Several papers give background accounts of the secret diplomatic dealings and horse-trading of spies and prisoners which led Obama to extend the olive branch. Obama described the 54 year-old US embargo on Cuba as an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance his country's interests.

The French Communist Party daily L’Humanité presents the 17 December joint announcement by the two Cold War foes as the clearest evidence that the Cuban people are stronger than the American embargo.

Libération looks back at 50 years of Communist rule in Cuba, regretting Fidel Castro’s decision to impose a tropical version of Soviet-style communism instead of opting for the mixed economic dispensation called for by Cuba’s proximity with the United States after freeing his people from the shameful domination of the American mafia.

Cuban communism was indeed depressing, writes Libé, marked by corruption, acute shortages of basic supplies and the nomenclatura in Havana relying on the defunct USSR and recently Venezuela to prevent the country going bankrupt. Libération however points to some  achievements – the good level of Cuba’s education, its egalitarian health system and job security in the state bureaucracy.

Libé presents Cuba’s deal with her Yankee enemy as a golden opportunity to begin a phased exit from communism to a society of economic and social freedoms which should enable Raul Castro to succeed where his brother failed.

Le Monde accuses the very efficient conservative Cuban American lobby nourished by ferocious sentiments of generations dispossessed by the Castro revolution of dissuading successive American presidents from resolving the Cuban problem. According to Le Monde it is because of strong opposition in Washington that it took Obama six years to make his move. Le Monde says he is right to have opted for a bold approach as he can capitalise on the demographic evolution of Cuban refugees in the United States. Most of those born after the 1959 revolution are less ideological on the question and more favourable to a rapprochement with their country of origin.

Obama’s political and diplomatic coup may not be as risky as it looks, argues Le Figaro. It observes that US public opinion about Cuba is on Obama’s side, not with the his Republican opponents. The right-wing paper cites a recent Atlantic Council survey showing that up to 65 per cent of Americans now favour a resumption of diplomatic trade ties with the island. There is a surprising revelation in the study. Miami the powerful bastion of the Cuban-American community in Florida is even more favourable to dealings with Cuba than the rest of the country.

Several of today’s papers do however agree that a swift repeal of the Cuban embargo is unlikely under a Republican-controlled Congress. Still fuming with anger over Obama's unilateral immigration reform last month, the Republicans have branded Obama’s move as "a victory for oppression" that rewards a dictatorship,.

The Catholic dailyLa Croix, holds that, despite the cautious manner in which the deal has been received on the island and in the community of Cuban exiles, the spectacular rapprochement between Washington and Havana is a welcome fresh start for the people of Cuba and the United States.