French press review 4 September 2014

What have this morning's editions of the catholic daily paper, La Croix, and communist L'Humanité, got in common? They are the only two national dailies which resolutely ignore the fact that Valérie Trierweiler, former girlfriend of French president François Hollande, has written a book about last year's stormy collapse of her relationship with the president.

The rest of the national dailies strive for a certain seriousness.

Le Monde devotes its main story to the crisis in Ukraine, but can't resist slipping in another top-of-the-page headline, reading "Hollande confronted by Trierweiler testimony".

Right wing Le Figaro pretends that its main story is about the "infernal spiral" of the national debt. But the conservative paper's front page is dominated by a picture of Madame Trierweiler, and her book described as "ravaging" for the socialist leader.

Over at left-leaningLibération, the big story concerns the new French Education Minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, allegedly the victim of racist and feminist insults. But there's a sneaky picture of the unhappy couple, François and Valérie, at the very top of the same front page, and the moralising, not to say moralistic, headline "Politics besmirched by private lives".

So, let's get the bloody book out of the way for once and for all. I haven't read it. It won't be available until the nation's bookshops open in a couple of hours.

But our colleagues in the printed press all have well-thumbed copies. And so we can confirm, for example, that the actual writing of the book was such a closely guarded secret that its publication has come as a complete surprise to the president and his entourage.

The details are less than edifying. Trierweiler claims that the president swore on her son's life that he was not having an affair with the actress Julie Gayet. When a compromising photo on the front page of a scandal magazine made that oath very difficult to believe, there followed harrowing scenes in which Trierweiler attempted to swallow a bag full of tranquilisers while the president chased her, attempting to grab the drugs. Pills went everywhere, leading to an undignified scramble as the pair, on hands and knees, fought for the spilled pills, she stuffing them into her mouth, he trying to get them back out. For the man who promised to be a"normal" president, the image amplified by this book could hardly be less endearing.

Trierweiler claims that the socialist leader detests poor people, calling them "toothless". He is also described as completely hooked on his own media image.

Says Le Monde, Trierweiler was repudiated and humiliated in public. She has now fought back in her own way, on the same battlefield, taking a terrible public revenge.

And, so, to what's really going on in the world.

Communist L'Humanité is critical on NATO efforts to put manners on Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, in the dispute over Ukraine. The 28-nation bloc meets today to discuss the worsening situation in eastern Ukraine. But L'Humanité sees this as an outdated cold war reflex, aimed at underlining the so-called western world's determination to impose its dodgy economic standards on the rest of the world. NATO is the wrong forum for this debate, says L'Humanité, becasue what is needed is a compromise based on an understanding of the opposing factions inside Ukraine, not some outdated sabre-rattling intended to put the wind up the Kremlin.

Catholic La Croix says the latest economic danger is deflation: what happens is that unemployed and penniless consumers decide not to buy the latest iPhone or replace the Ferrari, the producers are then forced to produce less and slow down investment. They then have to lower prices, and let more workers go. Which leads to more unemployed and penniless consumers, and the whole sad cycle gets rolling again.

Worse, from a government perspective, is the fact that deflation has a dramatic impact on state efforts to balance the books. Less spending means less VAT, less company tax, more unemployment spending, a smaller margin for savings on civil service salaries where increases are linked to inflation.

You can bet Mario Draghi and the boys at the European Central Bank will have all this clearly in mind when they sit down for their first policy meeting since the summer later today in the German city of Frankfurt.