French press review 12 March 2012

It's hard to get away from Nicolas Sarkozy this morning.

The weekend edition of Le Monde set the tone on Saturday, warning us that the president-candidate's weekend meeting in the Paris suburb of Villepinte was going to be "The moment of truth for Sarkozy".

Popular daily Aujourd'hui en France says there were several surprises in the presidential presentation, and that the shock tactic may be enough to get a becalmed campaign moving again.

The mass market tabloid singles out Sarkozy's attack on the Schengen agreement which is supposed to facilitate the free circulation of people within Europe. But that free circulation has meant that illegal immigrants have a huge choice of points of entry, and they don't have to worry about border controls once they get in. Last year, you'll remember, France re-established border controls for people arriving from Italy in an effort to limit the number of north African immigrants making their way northwards from their arrival point in Lampedusa.

Yesterday, Nicolas Sarkozy said Europe was currently disgraced as the only region in the world incapable of protecting its borders, and that the management of human migration was far too important to be left in the hands of technocrats. If no progress is made in the next 12 months, warns Sarko, France will withdraw from the Schengen group completely.

The main headline in catholic La Croix reads "Sarkozy tries to bounce back on Europe", the catholic daily's main story presenting the out-going president as the solitary defender of a European island, rocked by the waves of illegal immigration and shaken by globalisation.

Says the La Croix editorial, it's not France but Europe that has to change, and Sarkozy believes he's the man to sort it all, once he gets the election out of the way. But France cannot hide behind porous borders and promote a selfish economic policy warns La Croix, quoting the Socialist contender, François Hollande, as calling for a new vision of Europe based on debate and agreement with partner nations.

The president used the word "I" no fewer than 136 times in yesterday's speech, followed by "France" or "French" 112 times.

And, speaking of statistics, Aujourd'hui en France says the attendance at yesterday's meeting was 70,000 according to the UMP organisers, between 40 and 50,000 according to those who rented them the hall. The UMP are very coy about how much the whole thing cost, with a figure on one million euros being offered as an indication of the top price. But that can't be correct.

The UMP block booked ten high-speed trains and hundereds of buses to ferry the faithful in from the provinces. When they did the same thing back in 2007, with just eight trains and 520 buses, the bill came to 3.6 million euros. It's a funny thing about political parties and counting: they always see more supporters and fewer expenses than the rest of us.

The Swiss voted yesterday in a referendum. The question, basically, was: do you want an extra two weeks paid holidays each year? And the answer was: NO! The hard-working, serious Swiss lived up to their reputation and decided they'd rather work than have time off.

Since we're speaking about national stereotypes, I can tell you that the French-speaking cantons were the least enthusiastic, with just 51 per cent refusing the extra holidays. The German-speakers were much more clear with a 78 per cent refusal of the gift in, for example, the canto on Schwyz.

Asked why they were saying no to a question that most workers would consider a no-brainer, the saintly Swiss said they were afraid of the impact of extra time off on the competitivity of the businesses they work for. It takes all sorts.