French press review 19 April 2016

The Brazillian political crisis is also economic and social, according to Le Monde. Communist L'Humanité says the presidential witchhunt is being driven by a vengeful middle class. Right-wing Le Figaro gives its top story to a Socialist suggestion to pay a mimimum social allowance to young people from the age of 18, subject to certain conditions.

DR

"Dilma Rouseff in deep trouble, Brazil in crisis," reads the main headline in Le Monde.

The Brazillian parliament has already voted to impeach the president; her political fate now depends on next month's decision by the Senate.

She says she will resist all efforts to dislodge her before the end of her elected mandate.

Rousseff is accused of having covered up huge budgetary overspending but, says Le Monde, she's really paying for a series of political misjudgements and public exasperation with corruption. The crisis underlines the deep divisions in a country which is unstable politically, economically and socially, according to the centrist daily.

Communist L'Humanité gives the front-page honours to the same story but says it is a "witchhunt" driven by a vengeful middle class, determined to put an end to the socialist programme promoted by Rousseff and her Workers Party.

The Communist Party paper says the parliamentary vote in favour of impeachment was orchestrated by well-known figures on the far right. L'Humanité says we are witnessing nothing less than an institutional coup d'état.

Iran's not for freezing

Petrol prices are on the way down again, following the failure of the Doha summit of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries to agree on a production freeze.

Le Monde says practically all the major producers were in favour of further slowing the supply of crude oil, a strategy which has already seen the price of a barrel of crude gain 50 percent of its value since February. But Iran, free of international sanctions since January and in dire need of foreign exchange, has no interest in shutting down the pumps.

A barrel of oil can be bought at the moment for slightly more than 40 dollars, down from 58 dollars one year ago.

No jobs? Give them free money!

Right-wing Le Figaro gives its top story to a Socialist suggestion to pay a mimimum social allowance to young people from the age of 18, subject to certain conditions. And there's to be a general relaxation of those conditions. The current allowance is available only to those over the age of 25. Student bodies have welcomed the move. The Prime Minister Manuel Valls has asked for a more detailed examination of the proposal.

Le Figaro's editorial is scathing.

Because a handful of noisy students have been out complaining about proposed changes to labour law, Valls is prepared to consider a move which would cost the state an additional six billion euros every year, it complains. France is ruined, says Le Figaro, with a deficit of 70 billion euros and accumulated borrowings of 2,100 billion. The prime minister should have put the proposal in the bin without a second glance. But no, he decided to take refuge in ambiguity and indecision, a reaction learned from his boss, President François Hollande.

It's not just a question of money, says Le Figaro. Young people trying to start their careers need jobs, not handouts. The law, against which a "handful" of them are so vehemently protesting would make those jobs available, by simplifying the regulations. But what can you expect, laments Le Figaro, from a government which plans to increase the penalties on companies which take on workers on short-term contracts? The conservative paper finds the situation simply hopeless.

Could you spare a vote?

Le Figaro also looks at US Republican presidential contender, Donald Trump, who faces a primary in his home state of New York later today. It is ironic, says Le Figaro, that the billionaire King of Manhattan will need to support of the state's poorest if he's to ensure a broad margin of victory.

A date with destiny?

Left-leaning Libération wonders if French former president Nicolas Sarkozy will end up in court before his ambition to be reelected gets into its stride.

There is a traditional legal ceasefire in the months preceeding any French election campaign and Sarkozy would qualify for at least a temporary let-off if he managed to win the right-wing primary, due later this year.

Sarkozy faces dates with the judiciary in no fewer than eight separate cases. The most crucial, according to Libé, is that in which Sarko is accused of corruption and abuse of power in the so-called Bizmuth affair, Paul Bizmuth having been the false name assumed by the then president who feared that his phone conversations with his legal team were being listened to. It didn't work. The president was identified, allegedly attempting to bribe a high judicial official with a lucrative job offer.

Crucially, that case could be heard before the May 2017 cut-off date, and a guilty verdict would result in a jail sentence and ineligibility for any public office. Neither of which would help a man trying to get himself re-elected president.