French press review 8 March 2017

All the latest in the French presidential debate and other blood sports. Who is Benoît Hamon and why is he angry? Why is famine once again ravaging 10 African countries? And what use is the International Day of Women's Rights, celebrated today?

The main story in right-wing Le Figaro says socialist heavyweights are getting ready to support the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, leaving their own man, Benoît Hamon, struggling to make himself heard as he remains a distant fourth in opinion polls on the outcome of the first round.

The heavyweights in question are former Paris mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, and the current Defence Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, both expected to publicly announce their support for the former economy minister, now freelancing at the head of his new neither-left-nor-right party, En Marche!

Le Figaro says the support of Le Drian will be a huge boost to the man currently predicted to come second to Marine Le Pen of the National Front in next month's first round. Le Drian is rated by the right-wing paper as one of the few ministers in the Hollande administration who has seen his popularity and influence grow over the past five years.

Macron already has Claude Bartolone, the president of the National Assembly, in his pocket. Along with Sports Minister Patrick Kanner, and the junior minister responsible for victim support, Juliette Méadel.

Hamon, meanwhile, was addressing the faithful in the southern city of Marseille, complaining that the fracas surrounding the disgrace of the right-wing contender, François Fillon, is making serious debate inaudible.

Raising his voice, Hamon was harshly critical of "those liberals" who, he says, are driving voters to the extreme right.

He also called Macron a Homeric chimera: lion at the front, dragon behind, all goat in the middle.

One French voter in three prepared to support Marine Le Pen

Le Monde's main headline says that one French person in three agrees with the ideas of the far-right National Front and is ready to vote for that party's president, Marine Le Pen.

The website of the same centrist paper notes that Fillon can now count on the conditional support of the Union of Democrats and Independents, another boost in the wake of his own party's unanimous decision to back the troubled candidate.

It remains to be seen, of course, what the impact on Fillon's support will be of the latest revelations that he failed to declare a 50,000 euro loan from billionaire businessman, Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière.

The loan was offered interest-free, and was fully repaid.

The problem is that French tax laws oblige every public servant who borrows more than 760 euros to declare the fact, something which poor old Fillon says he forgot to do.

The national financial court is already investigating Fillon's failure to make proper declarations to the authority responsible for cleaning up the French political sector.

Fillon preaches respect for the law

Left-leaning Libération says Fillon's tone is becoming ever more right-wing, with his latest promise being that he'll make the hooligans remember what the law means.

At a meeting in the conservative stronghold of Orléans last night, Fillon spoke, without apparent irony, of the need to re-establish the rule of law and to remind criminals that there is no impunity. That observation passed without as much as a snigger from the assembled faithful.

International Day of Women's Rights

Libération devotes its cover to the International Day of Women's Rights, which is being marked today. The paper warns that, thanks to a reactionary political climate, right-wing pressure against abortion and the election of Donald Trump in the United States, the battle for women's rights has never been more crucial. "It's an endless struggle" reads Libé's main headline.

Catastrophe looms as famine returns to Africa

La Croix gives its main front-page story to the return of famine to Africa, noting that Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen are all under imminent threat, with South Sudan already in the throes of a declared food shortage.

But a dozen other countries face major problems of food security.

And it all comes down to human, political causes says the catholic daily, pointing out that the worst affected areas are also zones ravaged by civil war.