February 7, 2012
Kiosque It’s a sunny day but the temperatures have plummeted well below freezing.  As Parisians scurry about trying to keep warm, the kiosque is heating up with electoral battles. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s endorsement of French President Nicolas Sarkozy covers the front page of Le Figaro. Sarkozy’s attempts to present himself as the only candidate with the necessary experience to confront international problems is no doubt helped by Merkel’s statement that she supports him “on all levels.” Will the French follow the Chancellor’s support with their votes? Will they buy the idea of “Merkozy” at all? We’ll see.  Le Monde features the “match dans le match” taking place in the fringes of French politics. Marine Le Pen of the far right Front National has been duking it out with Jean-Luc Melenchon of the leftist Front de gauche. Each candidate is aggressively courting the French working classes. While both of their candidacies condemn the financial system, argue for France’s exit from NATO and push for an increase in the minimum wage, they have radically different views on Europe. Melenchon wants to create a vast European development fund while Le Pen promises to quit the euro altogether. The whole debate looks like it will remain a sideshow, however. Le Monde shows that President Sarkozy and the Socialist Party’s François Hollande are well ahead of the pack and the ultimate choice will be only between the two of them. The top international story, meanwhile, is the ongoing crisis in Syria with Le Fig focusing on the growing presence of Russian forces on the ground and Le Monde on the Chinese blogosphere’s outrage over Beijing’s refusal to condemn the Syrian regime in the Security Council.  “Abandoned by the whole world” reads a two-page spread in Libération on the recent bombardments in the city of Homs.  “Greece: Europe is losing its patience,” warns the front page of  the business paper Les Echos following on the joint press conference Monday by Sarkozy and Merkel. The dynamic duo, with the support of the rest of the European Union, issued an ultimatum to Athens: if Greeks refuse the austerity measures attached to the 130 billion euro bailout package the money wont be released. Lets hope they’re listening. — Clara Zabludowsky (Photograph of a brave crocus defying the frozen ground at sunset this afternoon in the Parc Monceau, Paris, France)

Kiosque

It’s a sunny day but the temperatures have plummeted well below freezing.  As Parisians scurry about trying to keep warm, the kiosque is heating up with electoral battles.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s endorsement of French President Nicolas Sarkozy covers the front page of Le Figaro. Sarkozy’s attempts to present himself as the only candidate with the necessary experience to confront international problems is no doubt helped by Merkel’s statement that she supports him “on all levels.” Will the French follow the Chancellor’s support with their votes? Will they buy the idea of “Merkozy” at all? We’ll see.

 Le Monde features the “match dans le match” taking place in the fringes of French politics. Marine Le Pen of the far right Front National has been duking it out with Jean-Luc Melenchon of the leftist Front de gauche. Each candidate is aggressively courting the French working classes. While both of their candidacies condemn the financial system, argue for France’s exit from NATO and push for an increase in the minimum wage, they have radically different views on Europe. Melenchon wants to create a vast European development fund while Le Pen promises to quit the euro altogether. The whole debate looks like it will remain a sideshow, however. Le Monde shows that President Sarkozy and the Socialist Party’s François Hollande are well ahead of the pack and the ultimate choice will be only between the two of them.

The top international story, meanwhile, is the ongoing crisis in Syria with Le Fig focusing on the growing presence of Russian forces on the ground and Le Monde on the Chinese blogosphere’s outrage over Beijing’s refusal to condemn the Syrian regime in the Security Council.  “Abandoned by the whole world” reads a two-page spread in Libération on the recent bombardments in the city of Homs.

 “Greece: Europe is losing its patience,” warns the front page of  the business paper Les Echos following on the joint press conference Monday by Sarkozy and Merkel. The dynamic duo, with the support of the rest of the European Union, issued an ultimatum to Athens: if Greeks refuse the austerity measures attached to the 130 billion euro bailout package the money wont be released. Lets hope they’re listening.

— Clara Zabludowsky

(Photograph of a brave crocus defying the frozen ground at sunset this afternoon in the Parc Monceau, Paris, France)

5:39pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNXtNyG1-Sy2
Filed under: Paris France Clara Zabludowsky Le Figaro Libération Les Echos Sarkozy Merkel austerity cold snap weather Greece Europe euro 
November 21, 2011
The Trouble With Technocrats

Saving the Greeks and Italians from themselves, and Europe from the euro, will take more than number-crunching. An essay by Christopher Dickey and Barbie Nadeau in this week’s Newsweek International.

Have you read it? Do you agree?

9:45am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNXtNyCDAzle
Filed under: Paris France Rome Italy Mario Monti Greek Greece debt crisis euro eurozone Germany Egypt Shaukat Aziz Pakistan Colombia technocrats Alexander Hamilton George Papandreou Silvio Berlusconi Lucas Papademos 
September 13, 2011
Kiosque: Priorities: Sex, soccer, and that headscratcher “Why Learn?” on this Marais kiosque. Libération this morning leads on “The Banks Sick From Greece,” the running theme on all the French frontpages today. Le Parisien asks, “Crisis of the Euro: How Much Would the Bankruptcy of Greece Cost Us.” The financial dailies, predictably, run along the same lines. Les Echos’ top headline is “The French Banks in an Infernal Spiral,” while La Tribune leads on “Stop the Massacre!” — both with red graphics on French banks’ poor finish in yesterday’s CAC 40 session. BNP Paribas finished down 12.35 percent on worries over its exposure to Greek (and Italian) debt. Le Figaro features Prime Minister François Fillon’s “Vibrant Plea to Safeguard the Euro,” splitting the frontpage with a report on worries in Socialist Martine Aubry’s camp as François Hollande remains at the top of polls for the primaries next month. Le Parisien’s “une” features a photo of a medical helicopter picking up a victim of the fatal explosion (one dead, four injured) at the Marcoule nuclear site near Avignon yesterday. But without a radiation leak, the story is relegated to the back pages of the other dailies. And Libération uses part of its cover to toot its own horn, with sales up 5.2 percent through a very newsy 2011 so far, compared to the same period last year. The left-wing daily might want to send a fruit basket to the Strauss-Kahn residence, number 13, Place des Vosges.

Kiosque:

Priorities: Sex, soccer, and that headscratcher “Why Learn?” on this Marais kiosque.

Libération this morning leads on “The Banks Sick From Greece,” the running theme on all the French frontpages today. Le Parisien asks, “Crisis of the Euro: How Much Would the Bankruptcy of Greece Cost Us.” The financial dailies, predictably, run along the same lines. Les Echos’ top headline is “The French Banks in an Infernal Spiral,” while La Tribune leads on “Stop the Massacre!” — both with red graphics on French banks’ poor finish in yesterday’s CAC 40 session. BNP Paribas finished down 12.35 percent on worries over its exposure to Greek (and Italian) debt. Le Figaro features Prime Minister François Fillon’s “Vibrant Plea to Safeguard the Euro,” splitting the frontpage with a report on worries in Socialist Martine Aubry’s camp as François Hollande remains at the top of polls for the primaries next month.

Le Parisien’s “une” features a photo of a medical helicopter picking up a victim of the fatal explosion (one dead, four injured) at the Marcoule nuclear site near Avignon yesterday. But without a radiation leak, the story is relegated to the back pages of the other dailies.

And Libération uses part of its cover to toot its own horn, with sales up 5.2 percent through a very newsy 2011 so far, compared to the same period last year. The left-wing daily might want to send a fruit basket to the Strauss-Kahn residence, number 13, Place des Vosges.

1:59pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNXtNy9Ti9PR
Filed under: Paris France News Greece debt euro financial crisis BNP François Hollande Martine Aubry nuclear radiation DSK 
August 18, 2011
Kiosque: We are running a little behind today, but should catch up with the papers soon … Hey, it’s August. … Ok. We’ve read the last two day’s papers and magazines so you don’t have to, and the conclusion we’ve come to is that we didn’t have to either. The Sarkozy-Merkel summit that was supposed to reassure did not. The markets have voted and this afternoon the French market was, well, crashing: down almost 6 percent at close. Le Monde’s elegant headline before this latest turn, or downturn, of events was “Euro: Paris and Berlin act as architects, not firemen.” Unfortunately, the flames are spreading. On the magazine front, L’Express played up its interview with Kenneth Thompson, one of the attorneys for DSK accuser Nafissatou Diallo. Its sidebar on the medical report about her condition after Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged attack on May 14 made some headlines yesterday when it went up on the Web, but it’s nothing that Newsweek and The Daily Beast didn’t have, and publish, last month. So, we amused ourselves looking at pictures in Paris Match and elsewhere of the rich and powerful on vacation, which is where we probably should be, too.

Kiosque: We are running a little behind today, but should catch up with the papers soon … Hey, it’s August. …

Ok. We’ve read the last two day’s papers and magazines so you don’t have to, and the conclusion we’ve come to is that we didn’t have to either.

The Sarkozy-Merkel summit that was supposed to reassure did not. The markets have voted and this afternoon the French market was, well, crashing: down almost 6 percent at close. Le Monde’s elegant headline before this latest turn, or downturn, of events was “Euro: Paris and Berlin act as architects, not firemen.” Unfortunately, the flames are spreading.

On the magazine front, L’Express played up its interview with Kenneth Thompson, one of the attorneys for DSK accuser Nafissatou Diallo. Its sidebar on the medical report about her condition after Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged attack on May 14 made some headlines yesterday when it went up on the Web, but it’s nothing that Newsweek and The Daily Beast didn’t have, and publish, last month.

So, we amused ourselves looking at pictures in Paris Match and elsewhere of the rich and powerful on vacation, which is where we probably should be, too.

11:48am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNXtNy8SxMDg
Filed under: Paris France news kiosk kiosque Nafissatou Diallo Sarkozy Merkel euro financial crisis crash stock market CAC 40 
July 21, 2011
KIOSQUE: A bit of wishful thinking. Still grim sweater weather in Paris, but this Ricard ad campaign for pastis — the aperitif that evokes sun, sand, and old men playing pétanque on the Côte d’Azur – graces all the kiosks around the Place de la Bastille this morning. European leaders’ crisis talks over the euro in Brussels today get cover story treatment from Le Figaro and Libération. Libé headlines on “Disgraceful Europe,” claiming, “In the eyes of its citizens, Europe has become a synonym for austerity.” (That story surely responsible for relegating the page-and-a-half piece on lentils tipped on the cover to page 22.) Le Figaro headlines on Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel’s successful late-night powwow for a common stance on the euro, the paper, true to type, painting Sarkozy heroically. Le Parisien gets to the real important stuff, the impending battle between two French loves: strikes and vacation. The upcoming “chassé-croisé” – the congested tag-team moment when the “juilletistes” (July holidaymakers) and the “aoûtiens” (August holidaymakers) will cross paths coming and going – may be marred this year by Air France personnel angling for a work stoppage. The paper’s man-on-the-street round-up asking whether strikes during the holidays are shocking yields two “yes,” two “no,” and a “yes and no.” Even split. The Thursday weeklies are vying for beach readers. Paris Match opts for romance, with the usually dour Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry, and the husband we rarely see, Jean-Louis, all smiles for some summer puff before the 2012 presidential pre-campaign gets underway in earnest in the fall. Le Point goes thriller, headlining on “The Mafia in France,” ticking through mafiosi imports from Italy, the Baltics, the Balkans, the former Soviets, China, and Nigeria, with the Corsicans thrown in for local flavor. And Le Nouvel Observateur handles the rest: “From Caesar to DSK. Sex, Power, and Scandals.”

KIOSQUE:

A bit of wishful thinking. Still grim sweater weather in Paris, but this Ricard ad campaign for pastis — the aperitif that evokes sun, sand, and old men playing pétanque on the Côte d’Azur – graces all the kiosks around the Place de la Bastille this morning.

European leaders’ crisis talks over the euro in Brussels today get cover story treatment from Le Figaro and Libération. Libé headlines on “Disgraceful Europe,” claiming, “In the eyes of its citizens, Europe has become a synonym for austerity.” (That story surely responsible for relegating the page-and-a-half piece on lentils tipped on the cover to page 22.) Le Figaro headlines on Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel’s successful late-night powwow for a common stance on the euro, the paper, true to type, painting Sarkozy heroically.

Le Parisien gets to the real important stuff, the impending battle between two French loves: strikes and vacation. The upcoming “chassé-croisé” – the congested tag-team moment when the “juilletistes” (July holidaymakers) and the “aoûtiens” (August holidaymakers) will cross paths coming and going – may be marred this year by Air France personnel angling for a work stoppage. The paper’s man-on-the-street round-up asking whether strikes during the holidays are shocking yields two “yes,” two “no,” and a “yes and no.” Even split.

The Thursday weeklies are vying for beach readers. Paris Match opts for romance, with the usually dour Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry, and the husband we rarely see, Jean-Louis, all smiles for some summer puff before the 2012 presidential pre-campaign gets underway in earnest in the fall. Le Point goes thriller, headlining on “The Mafia in France,” ticking through mafiosi imports from Italy, the Baltics, the Balkans, the former Soviets, China, and Nigeria, with the Corsicans thrown in for local flavor. And Le Nouvel Observateur handles the rest: “From Caesar to DSK. Sex, Power, and Scandals.”

1:58pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNXtNy7LrPRM
Filed under: Caesar Côte d'Azur France Greece Mafia Martine Aubry Martine Aubry Paris Pastis Ricard aoutiens euro juilletistes kiosque strikes vacation Paris Place de la Bastille 
July 17, 2011
KIOSQUE: Paris doesn’t have a tradition of big Sunday newspapers. The weekend papers come out on Saturday. If you can find a kiosque open at all on Sundays, the only new publications you are likely to come across are Le Journal du Dimanche and Le Parisien (or its sibling Aujourd’hui). So this morning on Avenue des Ternes we had JDD’s coverage of the ongoing monetary crisis — “How to Save the Euro” — and the latest stages of the Tour de France (finally a French rider, Thomas Voeckler, is hanging on to the yellow jersey). Le Parisien offered “The Keys to the DSK Affair,” sort of, and a piece on the corpulent Scottish couple who won the Euro Millions lottery … So we kept looking, and decided to pick up a copy of the racy and not always reliable weekly picture magazine VSD published earlier in the week. The cover promises us that for Anne Sinclair, wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn “The Hour of Vengeance is At Hand.” But not against DSK, against those who’ve failed to support him.

KIOSQUE:

Paris doesn’t have a tradition of big Sunday newspapers. The weekend papers come out on Saturday. If you can find a kiosque open at all on Sundays, the only new publications you are likely to come across are Le Journal du Dimanche and Le Parisien (or its sibling Aujourd’hui). So this morning on Avenue des Ternes we had JDD’s coverage of the ongoing monetary crisis — “How to Save the Euro” — and the latest stages of the Tour de France (finally a French rider, Thomas Voeckler, is hanging on to the yellow jersey). Le Parisien offered “The Keys to the DSK Affair,” sort of, and a piece on the corpulent Scottish couple who won the Euro Millions lottery … So we kept looking, and decided to pick up a copy of the racy and not always reliable weekly picture magazine VSD published earlier in the week. The cover promises us that for Anne Sinclair, wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn “The Hour of Vengeance is At Hand.” But not against DSK, against those who’ve failed to support him.

1:20pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNXtNy7CDAEH
Filed under: JDD Journal du Dimanche Le Parisien VSD Anne Sinclair DSK Strauss-Kahn Thomas Voeckler euro 
May 11, 2010
Le Kiosque: 11 May 2010

The Markets Respond

How Sarkozy Lost His Grip

You’re Either On the Bus or Off the Bus

http://newsweek-kiosque.blogspot.com/2010/05/le-kiosque-11-may-2010.html

12:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNXtNyZsday
Filed under: euro stock markets sarkozy banlieues 
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