French press review 23 April 2016

The signing of the Paris climate deal in New York lifts hearts, while world powers come out shining less brilliantly. Turkey catches Europe in its migrants booby trap, plus the trauma of Tchernobyl 30 years on, as a million people live on nuclear waste dumps.  

DR

Libération

A total of 175 countries signed the Paris Climate Agreement at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday, with world leaders such as US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande delivering what Libération considers "graceful speeches to mark the occasion". But as Libé reports, despite the determination expressed, the United States and France are far, far from being examplary due to an absence of political will.

The left-leaning newspaper points to the US state of Florida threatened by rising water levels as an example. The state, it explains, is governed by a climate skeptic, a situation that for it, best illustrates the schizophrenia on an influential part of the American political class. Libé claims that while France is brilliant in the oral exam, it has failed the written part because the environmental policies of President Hollande's government are full of what it calls "renunciations".

Le Figaro

The right-wing newspaper analyses the "migrants trap set by Turkey into which the EU has fallen". This, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU leaders travel to Turkey this Saturday for a high-stake visit. The trip will see the EU delegation walk a diplomatic tightrope between keeping Ankara appeased over a crucial migrant deal and taking a stand on European values. The conservative newspaper accuses Merkel of committing a "grave initial error by opening the gates of Europe to all the migrants from the Middle East".

For Le Figaro, after being submerged by the numbers of refugees already in Germany and weakened by inevitable electoral pressure, Merkel felt she had found salvation by offloading the problem onto Ankara. But as the paper points out, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is "not the type of man who gives without taking". What he seeks in the tradeoff, it argues, is the abolition of Schengen visas for Turkey's 80 million citizens. This, despite the fact that the country hasn't fulfilled half of the 72 criteria prescribed in European law.

Since the signing of the EU/Turkey accords in March, the flow of refugees arriving from Greece has slowed down, says Le Figaro. But the right-wing publication observes that "Sultan" Erdogan believes he has fulfilled his part of the contract.

As the right-wing newspaper puts it, Erdogan has not only demonstrated his capacity to control the influx but also admitted his role in the invasion experienced by Europe in 2015. Le Figaro argues that President Erdogan now believes Europe is at his mercy and is threatening to reopen the flood gates if the European visas are not scrapped by June.

La Croix

The "poisoned life of Tchernobyl" is the front page story of today's issue of the Catholic daily as it marks 30 years of the explosion at the nuclear power station. La Croix recalls that radioactive clouds unleashed by the disaster of 26 April, 1986 swept across Belarus a few kilometers to the north where the bulk of the waste was dumped.

According to the Catholic daily, 30 years later, more than one million people continue to live in the contaminated territory, abandoned to fend for themselves by liquidators of the plant, who preferred to protect the Soviet Union and Europe by covering the reactor with a giant 35,000-ton steel containment structure.

L'Equipe

It's make or break time for Paris Saint Germain crows the sports daily in its preview of tonight's French Cup final between the French champions and Lille at the State de France. The Parisians are bidding to win the League Cup for the third consecutive year in their campaign for a clean domestic sweep having already won the season opening League Cup and Ligue 1. But the sports daily warns PSG to water down their large national appetite. Lille, it argues, are the best French team this spring, and l'Equipe goes on to predict a result more unpredictable than expected.

Le Figaro

The right-wing publication joins the debate about the troubled future of crisis-hit Marseille. The paper explores the problems which ruined the season of France's most popular club. Marseille now sits just six points clear of the bottom three while they are still looking to end a 14-game winless run at the Stade Velodrome. Le Figaro discusses the unprecedented problems of the French giants' Marseille mayor, Jean Claude Gaudin, who speaks about the "rumbling of mounting anger in the Phocaean city" stating that "the city doesn't breathe when l'OM loses".