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Europe Round-Up
French strikes, Spanish-US clash on seas, Italians bemoan US justice system, Conservative Muslims tell Tories "Iran needs nukes." And more...
As EURSOC predicted yesterday, the Sarkozy divorce beat yesterday's massive transport strike to the front pages of all the papers... with the exception of the left-wing Libération, which couldn't resist referring to both events with its cover "Divorce Social." Note how Libé reports that the trade unions responsible for yesterday's misery are demanding the "opening of negotiations on the reform of the special regimes." In France, bringing the country grinding to a halt is something the unions do as a statement of intent, rather than as an act of last resort.
Even the Guardian, Britain's closest equivalent of Libération, acknowledges that France is f*cked if Sarkozy can't introduce reform: "He cannot cave in the first time the unions flex their muscles. He was elected to reform labour laws, after a decade of failed attempts to do so."
While warning that Thatcherite strong-arm tactics won't keep public opinion on his side, the Guardian concludes, "France's action man has got to stop talking about reform and start delivering it."
The BBC is set to cut thousands of jobs, many in the broadcaster's prestigious newsgathering operations. Some commentators are unhappy about the hefty salaries paid to big stars; others complain of the low-quality trash output that fills the Beeb's "digital channels"; still more argue that the corporation spends millions on management and idiotic diversity programmes, when that cash would be better diverted to news shows. The Telegraph's Jeff Randall, himself an old BBC man, is all three.
Trouble on the high seas! The Spanish government forces an American treasure hunter into port following a dispute over the ownership of coins the Americans have salvaged from a 19th century wreck.
Italians are up in arms following a US judge's refusal to extradite "a convicted Cosa Nostra heroin trafficker on the grounds that Italy's tough prison regime for gangsters was a form of torture." The US "can't give lessons on human rights when they have Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib on their conscience" says a former prosecutor, while Italy's justice minister says he doubts whether "a country that uses the death penalty is more in line with UN values that a country that enforces tough prison sentences".
Still, if you want to have a go at America, you're better doing it from within the US. Gerard Baker looks at the phenomenon of American anti-Americanism and concludes, "All but the most unhinged of America’s critics know, deep down, in a part of the brain they try not to consult, that whatever they may think of the Bushitler in Washington, they don’t feel comfortable agreeing with the ex-KGB hatchet man of the Kremlin or the Holocaust-denying Dr Strangelove sitting astride his Islamist bomb. It sounds so much better when Al Gore or Michael Moore says it."
Speaking of Iran and the Bomb... Britain's Conservative Party asked the "Conservative Muslim Foundation" to come up with ways to help the Tories cosy up to grumbling Muslims. What were their recommendations? British schoolchildren should be taught "the massive contribution that Islam has made to the development of Western civilisation"; "15 billion Muslims (sic)" are unhappy with British support for Israel, threatening British national interests; and thanks to Iran's position and Israel's nukes, "Iran appears to have legitimate reasons for seeking nuclear weapons for defensive purposes". Er, thanks for that, guys.
And finally...: The rare and beautiful Italian Passito di Pantelleria wine "Faces extinction" because winemakers are not up to the "heroic task" of cultivating the island's steep slopes.
