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 [...]

Crossing the border to talk about race

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — In France, contrast and contradiction abound. It is a country at once old and new, liberal and conservative, uninhibited and repressed, imbued with the spirit of Révolution and Résistance and yet clinging desperately to an outdated worldview, dreaming of the past. And as the nation of the Gauls undergoes an [...]

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 [...]