French press review 22 September 2016

We now know the definite list of those eligible to contest the first round of the primary election to choose which candidate should represent the right-wing Republicans in next year's French presidential election.

There will be seven runners in the first round of the primary election to choose which candidate should represent the right-wing Republicans in next year's presidential election.

They are the usual suspects . . . Alain Juppé, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Fillon and Bruno Le Maire were already in the parade ring yesterday.

There were doubts about Jean-François Copé and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, but the Electoral Authority checked their 2,500 supporters and found no discrepancies. Both are good to go.

Jean-Frédéric Poisson completes the list, he qualifying as president of the Christian-Democratic Party.

Now the official campaigning can start in earnest. There will be hand-shaking, baby kissing, and three televised debates. Each candidate will get one minute to explain her or his position on a key question, and then the others, like sharks in suits, will rip into the propositions offered. There will be blood.

Will the primary do more harm than good?

Le Monde says the debate should allow the main opposition organisation to clarify its position on at least one crucial question: do The Republicans support legitimate right-wing aspirations in the face of the rise in popularity of the far right Front National, or is the idea simply to regain power by attracting the majority of voters?

At the end of all that, French voters will get to choose. In order to vote for one of the seven, you must be a registered elector, sign a charter accepting the core values of the centre-right, and pay 2 euros.

Le Figaro notes that some elements on the French left have decided that the right-wing primary will be a blessing for the Socialists. As the stars of the right publicly tear strips off one another, and compete to see who can bend over the furthest to attract the votes of the Front National, the Socialists will have a chance to construct a progressive bloc behind outgoing president, François Hollande.

The right-wing daily notes that the idea of any form of leftist unity is regarded as a bad joke, even in Socialist circles.

Our ancestors the Gauls

Le Monde reports that Nicolas Sarkozy has already nailed his colours to the mast.

Speaking at a public meeting in the northern Paris suburb of Franconville on Monday, the former president insisted that immigrants granted citizenship in France must accept that their "ancestors are the Gauls" adding that they will have to "live like the French".

Most historians now agree that "the Gauls" never existed outside the history books of a republic in search of unifying myths, that French identity draws on a huge range of ethnic sources. So much the better. And, for French people whose backgrounds are Malian, or Hungarian (Hungary is where Sarkozy's family originates), or Irish, who would want a greasy Gaul for a grandfather?

Fortress Europe starts to crumble

The main story in right-wing daily Le Figaro looks at how Europe is dealing with the return of walls, fences and frontiers, which were all supposed to have been consigned to the history books with the emergence of continental union.

Hungary and Austria have refused to shoulder any share of the Syrian refugee problem. Le Figaro interprets the Brexit vote which saw Great Britain leave the EU as an expression of a national desire to reclaim control of national borders. Germany has voted to extend the period under which border controls at the frontier with Austria were reinstated.

There is no doubt, says Le Figaro, that the question of walls and barriers will be central to up-coming European election campaigns.

Welcome to Spring, or Autumn

Libération reports that today sees the start of autumn, and goes on to ask, according to whom?

It turns out to be simple and scientific: 22 September is the date of the autumnal equinox, when there are as many hours of daylight as there are of darkness.

For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, Autumn will thus officially commence this afternoon at 14H21 Universal Time, when the sun reaches its highest point viewed from the Equator. For the other half of the globe, the same hour marks the start of Spring.