French weekly magazines review

French weekly magazines are discussing suggestions that the French government may be distancing itself from a report it commissioned on the country's competitiveness.

Revue de presse des hebdomadaires DR

There are lots of stories to spice up your weekend on top of the usual discussions about Francois Hollande’s job as President. Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault worsened the government’s troubles this week again when he suggested the government may not accept a proposal by investment commissioner Louis Gallois to make the economy more competitive. The former EADS chief was appointed by President Hollande to compile a report on the country's competitiveness. It suggests a 30 billion Euro tax break for companies to cushion high labor costs. The prime Minister’s reaction came after Le Monde and Le Figaro published leaked sections of the Gallois report, which had been due to be submitted to the President early next month.

The satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné reports that Gallois is furious as he watches the government trying to bury him alive. “Betrayal and lynching of a highly respected man”, headlines Marianne. The left-leaning magazine suggests that an enraged Gallois now faces the humiliating experience of having to watch the burial of his report without having a chance to speak on it.

“Hollande is in a tortoise race”, says Le Point, pointing to the ambiguity and hesitation with which he treated the competitiveness dossier as evidence that he has second thoughts.

For l’Express, the President is playing for time and hoping that economic growth will come to his rescue. But Le Nouvel Observateur is impatient, saying it has had enough of the quacks, back-tracking and improvisation on economic policy.

Meanwhile, Marianne has criticised the unanimity of the press' reactions about the government’s failure to strike a cord either with the people or the Socialist-led majority. According to the magazine, the press is behaving like sheep, chanting in unison like football fans, often leading to disinformation.

As the economic crisis continues, Le Point offers 1001 tips to change the spending habits of French consumers. They include car pooling, buying food in bulk, five-euro restaurants and, more generally, a habit for "DIY". In the same issue, Le Point also reports more women are opting for red lipstick after American researchers found that wealthy men have a special appeal for red-lipped women.

Marianne is urging jobless people to “try the funeral market”, a sector which “ignores the rudeness of recession”. The death business, according to the paper, is worth 3 billion Euros annually, with 53 percent of the French opting for their loved ones to be cremated instead of following the long-standing culture of burials.

L’Express published a 25-page supplement on New York, America’s most emblematic city, as it prepares for the November 6 US Presidential election. The Big Apple reveals unique insights into American know-how and diversity, the magazine says.

For Marianne, as Barak Obama and Mitt Romney wrap up their campaigns, they haven't show much interest in the problems of 40 million Americans who live below the poverty line.

Le Point raises an “alert for Carpathian hackers” who steal up to a billion US dollars from bank accounts in the United States every year. The conservative newspaper traced their lair to central Romania. It’s a place called Ramnicu Valcea, now known as “Hackersville”. Le Point heard from a former hacker, "Bogdan", about how he spent sleepless nights “cloning” online shopping websites and stealing the identities of credit card owners. His loot: between 800 and tens of thousands of dollars a week, when business was good. Romanian police told Le Point that 80 percent of the cyber crime victims are American, with the rest being British, French and German.