French press review 2 February 2010

by Michael Fitzpatrick

Article published on the 2010-02-02 Latest update 2010-02-02 09:50 TU

There's plenty of variety on this morning's front pages.

Le Monde's main story looks at growing tensions between US in the West and THEM in China. The "tension" is a typical journalistic invention, but you can see where they're coming from. The Chinese economy is booming while the rest of the world - that's US - wallow in the misery of global crisis. The Chinese - that's THEM - are planning to put a man on the Moon before 2025 while the Americans couldn't afford a bus ticket. There are also disputes about climatic warming and the status of Taiwan.

Libération gives pride of place to something called "The housing scandal". More than a million people in France do not have anywhere to live, so the State puts them up in hotels, camp sites, or rented appartments. That's bad enough, but the scandalous bit is in the fact that there are two million empty houses and apartments. Now the government is planning to buy that un-used space and let it at a reasonable price to those without a roof over their heads.

L'Humanité spends a day in the cab of a Parisian suburban train, as the drivers of said trains prepare for their first strike of the year.

La Croix looks at the French courts and finds that there were fewer murders last year, and the juries are getting tougher with offenders of all descriptions.

Speaking of murder, right-wing Le Figaro celebrates the resumption of cordial relations between French head honcho, Nick Sarkozy, and the leader of the majority UMP party, a chap called Frank Copé, who, among other crimes, is a good mate of Dominique de Villepin. And Sarko does not like old Dom one little bit.

The Figaro headline assures us that Frank and Nick have "buried the hatchet". But, when you look closely at the photo of the pair of them smiling, with all their teeth, for the press after the public reconciliation, you would be forgiven for thinking that neither has forgotten the precise location of the buried hatchet, just in case it might come in handy some day soon.

Business daily Les Echos looks at American budgetary rigour, as Barack Obama tries to wipe out the zillion-dollar US deficit by cancelling the Constellation space project, which was to have included a return to the Moon as the first step on a manned expedition to Mars. Faced with an astronomical debt, the US leader has decided to go for job creation and economic security, leaving the space race to those pesky Chinese.

Today sees the opening of the French court case which will attempt to decide who, exactly, was responsible for the crash of the Air France Concorde, near Paris, ten years ago.

One hundred and thirteen people lost their lives in the disaster, when the supersonic aircraft burst into flames and crashed onto a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport while it was taking off.

Over the past decade, investigators have collected 90 volumes of written evidence, totalling 80,000 pages.

According to Le Monde, the case accuses two French aircraft designers, one civil aviation official, two Continental Airlines technicians and the American company itself, of involuntary manslaughter. The main point, I suppose, is to decide whose insurers will pay compensation to the families of those who died.

The generally accepted explanation for the crash is that a piece of metal fell from a Continental Airlines plane onto the runway, just minutes before the ill-fated Concorde began its take-off. That metal fragment then punctured a tyre on the French jet, pieces of which ruptured the Concorde's underwing fuel tanks.

This caused a fire and closed down two of the aircraft's four engines. The pilot tried to land at Le Bourget airport, nearer Paris, but the fatally underpowered plane turned over and crashed less than two minutes after taking off.

The lawyers representing Continental Airlines, not too surprisingly, have a different version of events. They point out that a Concorde had already suffered a burst tyre on take-off, at Washington, in 1979. They will call witnesses who claim that two of the crashed plane's engines were already on fire, 700 metres before the point of impact with the metal fragment.

Continental alleges that the whole case against it has been constructed in such a way as to protect the image of France and the flagship of the national airline.

The case is expected to last four months.

Finally, from the front page of Le Figaro again, news that Sicily is weathering the crisis rather better than the United States. As budgetary rigour racks the ranks of civil servants on the Italian mainland, Sicily is booming. Salaries for public servants have shot up by 38 per cent over the last four years, and there's an ever-increasing number of such employees.

Despite an official freeze on public appointments, the Sicilian civil service is now at a record 14,000 happy little pasta-guzzlers, with an average take-home pay of 43,000 euros. And that will buy you one big bucket of spaghetti!