French press review 21 January 2012

What do the closure of the Megaupload website and the French presidential campaign have in common? Should French troops be pulled out from Afghanistan before 2014? What were the real reasons former IMF chief, Dominque Strauss-Kahn was denied bail? The weekend editions of the daily newspapers attempt to provide the answers to these questions.

Let’s start with centrist paper Le Monde which, in its weekend edition, revisits the DSK affair.

It publishes an investigation which sets out to answer why the former IMF chief was denied bail and why he was sent to the high-security Rikers Island jail.

The daily claims the bail denial and DSK’s subsequent imprisonment at the prison was down to the “violent internal disagreement” between Cyrus Vince, the district attorney, and Lisa Friel, who was in charge of the sex crimes unit.

Five months after the case against DSK was dropped, Lisa Friel could be considered a collateral victim. According to the paper’s sources, she has since been fired by the district attorney.

Well, enough of sex, let’s talk about the economy.

The business daily La Tribune is begging for some economic growth in the eurozone. “Un peu de croissance svp, (a little growth please).” it pleads.

Nine days before a new European summit, the paper uncovers the chaos reigning in the eurozone. After six months of decline in European GDP, the leaders of the eurozone are questioning their entire philosophy of financial crisis management.

And now a bit of spirituality. The right-wing Le Figaro features an exclusive interview with the French centrist presidential candidate François Bayrou who explains "why I believe".

From the outset of the interview, he chooses to attack head-on both conservative and socialist presidential front runners: “Both of them are responsible for the loss of the triple A”, the candidate tells the paper.

Bayrou uses the interview to plead with the French to choose his candidacy - the true republicain - over what he calls "the candidates of the triple P", provisionally, principal parties, that is conservatives and socialists.

It's worth noting that the third man of the presidential campaign, as he’s now been called for the last six years, chose to give his first exclusive interview to the right-wing Le Figaro.

In a presidential campaign where everything is calculated, it can only signify one thing: François Bayrou is definitely after Sarkozy’s electorate.

Inadvertently, the centrist candidate has fallen into the trap set up by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to put him definitely on the right of the political spectrum.

But for the moment, as Le Monde reveals on its political page, Sarkozy’s main target is the Socialist candidate François Hollande. The “undeclared candidate” Sarkozy is hoping to let François Hollande drown himself in the contradictions of his own proposals.

On Sunday the Socialist leader is holding his first big electoral rally and the paper quotes Sarkozy’s eminence grise Henri Giano as saying: “If Hollande makes new proposals, all we have to do is wait until he retracts them”.

The closing of the Megaupload website dominates today’s Liberation. "Les naufragés du piratage" (the shipwreck victims of piracy)” cries the front page headline.

The left-wing daily dedicates its first three pages to the Megaupload closure and its impact on the French presidential campaign.

Any occasion to flog the incumbent president and his governments’ policies is good. All the presidential hopefuls, with no exception, blasted the government’s web content protection Hadopi law, pleading instead for a global licensing agreement.

And for dessert, let’s go to Liberation which asks the question "do you know who Dodo la Saumure is? The left wing daily features on its back cover a portrait of the man accused of supplying the former head of the IMF with prostitutes in the so-called 'Carlton scandal'.

It is a very amusing portrait. The funniest part is when Dodo La Saumure, interviewed in the jacuzzi of one of his brothels, asks the journalist to publish his real email address for potential investors.

Aged-62, the man is looking to expand his sex empire into a massage parlour for women and has other creative sexual recreation ideas.

And finally, let’s welcome the arrival to Earth of millions of “baby dragons”. “The stars are aligned" declares Le Figaro. Rest assured, we are not about to be invaded by aliens.

The article reports on the Chinese baby-boom, a demographic explosion of births expected in 2012.

Chinese couples make an exceptional effort in this particular year since, according to  popular belief, children born in the year of the Dragon are expected to live an exceptionally prosperous life!

Local nappy manufacturers are already rubbing their hands, they are looking forward to a 17 per cent increase in sales.