French press review 24 September 2009

by Matthew Kay

Article published on the 2009-09-24 Latest update 2009-09-24 07:35 TU

The UN General Assembly, G20 summit and the Clearstream trial are all over todays French papers.

The UN general assembly and G20 summit have got the papers talking this morning.

Communist l'Humanité leads with headline "silence at the G20". The paper deems that questions about unemployment, the democratisation of the IMF and what it calls the "fight against market speculation" are just some of the problems that won't be tackled head on at the opening of the talking shop today.

 Bizzarly, the photo editors at Catholic La Croix have chosen a picture of leader of the free world Barack Obama speaking at the UN yesterday to illustrate the line 'Sarkozy looks for compromise at the UN' and Financial rag Les Echos says that today France's little man at the top of the pile will demand concrete decisions at today's G20. Hmm I'm sure everyone will be listening with baited breath.

Well moving on from the world of international conferences, Libération is following the juicy developments at the Clearstream trial. If you don't know about this fascinating case, to cut a long story short, judges hope to get to the bottom of a hornets nest of accusations and counter claims surrounding a fake list of account holders at the Clearstream bank. It had been alleged that the accounts were used for depositing shady backhanders.

On that list was the name, among other top bods in France, of a certain Nicolas Sarkozy. Now Sarkozy didn't actually hold an account at Cleastream, but the “omnipresident” has demanded to know how and why his name got on that list. It’s become a clash of the titans between the current president and ex-prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who is accused in the trial of knowingly distributing this list for his own political goals...

Now today, Libé reports, was the courtroom battle between de Villepin and Imhad Lahoud, a co-defendent accused of drawing up this list. In court Lahoud said that he met de Villepin through the intermediary of the ex-PM's sister. De Villepin, when questioned about having met Lahoud replied: "Your honour, I do not know him, I have never met monsieur Lahoud other than in this court" It would appear that someone is lying...

The case continues