The Leftist press a “hostage” of its own ideals

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — The front page was finalized, facts checked and re-checked, last-minute revisions fired off, headlines inspected for the appropriate level of populist bite. The paper even went to print.
But Libération did not hit French newstands last Saturday, except around the eastern city of Lyon.
“With disbelief, the management of Libération has [...]

Do the French like Sarko? It depends who’s asking.

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — At 8:15 this past Thursday evening, a full 20 percent of France was in front of a TV, hoping for reassurance in a time of fiscal and social uncertainty. But if President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 90-minute Q and A [...]

In France, a free press? Not when it comes to racism.

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — Last week, Paris’s court of appeals sentenced Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder and president of the Front National, the radical right-wing French political party, to three months prison time, with parole, and a 10,000 euro fine. Le Pen had appealed the sentence, first handed down last February, for remarks made [...]

Listening to “Simple Gifts” in Paris

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — The talking heads fell silent, as if swept away by the beauty of the strings, the triumphal harmonies, the graceful bombast of American political theatre. As they watched Obama, live, bundled against the Washington cold, as he smiled to the no-doubt familiar tune of “Simple Gifts,” the French commentators [...]

L’Obamanie! Ooh la la…

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — No need to look much further than the front page of almost any French paper (Libération, Le Figaro, whose blog calls him “the hope of Europe”), the lead story of any TV newscast, or the cover of any magazine from the past few days (or weeks, even) to understand [...]

Do the French get scammed more than Americans? Or do they just make more noise when they do?

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — Earlier this month, Interior Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie launched an anti-scam reporting service and public information campaign, aimed largely at what the French government and press (France 2, Le Figaro) are calling an “explosion” in internet fraud in 2008.
According to the Interior Ministry, reports of scams and confidence schemes jumped [...]

Once again, it begins to bubble over.

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — Despite calls for moderation and restraint by politicians, religious leaders and community activists, anti-semitic violence has begun to crop up across France (see Le Monde, Reuters, Le Figaro). But the French press, unlike the international media, hesitate, still, to acknowledge what seems to be the reality of the situation: [...]

The French on Gaza

– By Scott Sayare –
BOSTON — France, and the EU more generally, has long struck a more moderate stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than the US, and French sympathy tends to side with the Palestinian cause. Which makes the piece that appears today in Le Figaro (though, admittedly, the most conservative of France’s three largest [...]

Facebook, the Mafiosi and the Press

– By Scott Sayare –
BOSTON — On Wednesday, Le Monde (along with the Telegraph, ANSA and Corriere della Sera, among others, and the New York Times, though two weeks behind its European counterparts) covered what appears to have become a source of popular outrage (the Italian government, at least, has thought it wise to weigh [...]