French press review 30 January 2012

There's no getting away from French President Nicolas Sarkozy this morning. The man was on television last night, on six channels, explaining how he's going to fix France. And he's on every front page this morning.

Housing, taxation and the 35-hour working week were the key areas considered; dignity, responsibility and accountability were the dominant tones.

With just a soupçon of the repentant Sarkozy who has recently been expressing regret for some of his early errors and misjudgements.

Le Figaro salutes "Sarkozy's shock reforms". The shock for the right-wing newspaper is in the fact that the president has come up with such courageous mesures just 80 days before the first round of the battle for re-election.

Increasing sales tax and asking workers to accept less pay when their employer is making less money are moves designed to re-launch French competitivity, says Le Figaro, not moves designed to re-launch Nicolas Sarkozy's popularity.

Catholic La Croix suggests that these are the sort of harsh reforms that a political figure would normally announce in the first months after his election, hoping to profit from the so-called 'honeymoon period'.

The fact that Sarkozy is taking this sort of risk now, according to the catholic daily, probably means that he has decided that the only way to beat François Hollande is to make it appear as if the socialist contender doesn't appreciate the gravity of the current crisis.

The La Croix front-page editorial ends by suggesting that, in case he gets the stuffing knocked out of him in the election, Sarko wants to be able to say that at least he tried everything.

Popular Aujourd'hui en France sees last night's performance as nothing less than the presentation of a programme for re-election, even if Sarko last night studiously avoided any committment to running again.

Business daily Les Echos has the man championing the clean break right to the end. They read the spirit of last night's performance as a plea for increased growth and competitiveness.

Les Echos describes as "spectacular" the presidential proposal to basically suspend planning regulations for three years in an effort to re-launch the construction sector.

If that ever sees the light of legislation, the limits for such things as population density and maximum building height will be bumped up by 30 per cent for three years.

Communist L'Humanité has the president dishing out dirty punches right to the bitter end. L'Huma claims that the proposed increase in sales tax, intended to boost employment, will simply penalise the poorest, as well as further slowing down consumer driven growth.

Left-wing Libération says Sarkozy is "a lost president", with more than a hint of a play on words.

Libé says that, far from being courageous, last night's propositions are limited, small-scale and unconvincing.

Worse, says the left-wing paper's editorial, Sarkozy continues to admire the German economic model, ignoring the social costs of continued German growth, notably on the question of job security and the emergence of the new poor, who have jobs but don't earn enough to survive.

Libération says it's no longer good enough to propose ways of living with the economic crisis.

What the French want is a way out of that crisis, or at least a few serious blows to its very roots.