French weekly magazines review 5 March 2016

The press reacts to Francois Fillon's scathing attack on the judiciary and so-called leftists "plotting his political assassination", as he waits to be placed under formal investigation in the suspected fake family jobs Penelopegate scandal.

DR

The left-leaning New Observer l'Obs summed it all in a telling dossier titled, The hidden money of lawmakers: bogus aides, fictitious bills and conflict of interest.

According to the weekly, the lifestyle of lawmakers in France is abusive, with their wives, brothers and children recruited as parliamentary assistants, while they are under no obligation to justify funds placed at their disposal.

L'Obs explains that in Francois Fillon's case, his wife Penelope earned close to one million euros between 1988 and 2013 as her husband's parliamentary assistant. Yet as the magazine explains, police investigators found no tangible trace of work.

The satirical weekly, Le Canard Enchaîné expresses revulsion at threats of reprisal  by National Front leader Marine Le Pen at what she called a climate of near civil war perpetrated by the media, civil servants, police and judges acting on orders.

Le Canard says Madame Le Pen who has refused to comply with a summons to meet investigating magistrates over the suspected misuse of European Parliament allowances  until after the elections, has clearly threatened to punish these so-called civil servants and get them to assume the consequences of their illegal methods, in her own words once this regime is swept away.

For its part, Marianne says it has had enough of corrupt politicians. What Francois Fillon did, it argues, is to stage his own political funeral.

In this week's issue it undertakes a review of landmark cases of politicians sentenced for graft and those facing trial from the likes of Socialist Budget Minister Jérome Cahuzac and conservative lawmaker Patrick Balkany for tax evasion, former Elysée Secretary General Claude Guéant, and ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy placed under investigation in a string of suspected graft scandals.

Regarding Marianne's question about whether the French are ready to overturn the table of corruption, entrenched in politics, l'Express believes it is a possibility.

The context is without comparison says the magazine. After nearly 40 years of populism and mass unemployment, and worsening budget deficits it holds, there is a clear rejection of outdated Gaullism and social communism by France's two traditional political blocks.

According to the conservative publication, On the Move party leader Emmanuel Macron has a potential to champion a new deal of centrism that goes beyond the left-right political divide.

It claims that defectors from the two blocks are convinced that the gravity of the economic situation would end up compelling yesterday's political foes to work together.

For l'Express, Macron would win the Elysée race, if he can find an audacious shepherd who can rally all the “lost sheep” of Social Democrats in President Francois Hollande's government.

The weekly names the likes of defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, environment minister Ségolène Royal, prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve and even so-called ‘battered’ ex-Premier Manuel Valls.

According to l'Express, it appears it is Francois Hollande himself who “hatched” this unbelievable political sequence adding that he may ironically be on the verge of convincing the same French people who barred him from seeking re-election to endorse it.