Press Review

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An overview of the stories making the French and international newspaper headlines. From Monday to Friday live at 7:20am and 9:20am Paris time.

  1. 16h ago

    'Feels like being hit by a bus': Rib remodelling beauty surgery on the rise

    PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, October 29: Spanish papers discuss Wednesday's deadly train collision. The New York Times investigates whether a "safest seat" in the event of a train crash exists. Next, we look at a report about "the shocking rise of rib remodelling". We end with some photos from the Arctic and Antarctica. Spanish papers are reacting to the devastating train crash that killed dozens of people on Wednesday. Both El Mundo and El País emphasise that it's not the first time this has happened – the last train accident in Spain was only nine months ago. El País also has a first-person story: "I travelled on this train", writes a journalist who works for the paper. He happened to be there during the crash. He already covered the Adamuz disaster in January and now he writes: "I had that feeling again of living through a nightmare". He also describes the strange calm and how he and other passengers managed to free themselves from the last carriage.  The New York Times asks the question "Is there a safest seat in a train crash?" The answer is not so simple. There's a rough consensus that it's best to sit in the middle of the train, in case of a hit from the front or the back. Some experts are even more precise, saying the best bet is sitting in the middle, in an aisle seat facing backward – that's because if the train suddenly stops, the whiplash would be less brutal and there's a smaller chance of being hit by flying objects. But experts told the paper that there are too many variables in train crashes to say for certain. This time in Spain, for example, the hit was from the back, so the safest place to sit would have been in the front of the train. But of course passengers couldn't have known in advance of the nature of the crash.  The tragedy is still very recent, but it could already have political repercussions. According to Democrata, it could harm Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's reputation before snap elections that are happening in only a month's time. The weak link among his ministers is Oscar Puente, the transport minister, who was already in post in January during the first train crash. According to the paper, he has three options: "continuity, resignation or dismissal". Puente is under fire, and not only because of the actual crashes. Some time after the previous rail disaster, he appeared in a comedy video in which he imitated a derailing train.  Next, The Guardian reports that rib remodelling surgery is on the rise. First, the patient's ribs are fractured, and then the person has to stay in a corset for three months, almost 24/7. The idea is to give the person a wasp-like waist. The Guardian spoke to people who went through it, who say it's extremely painful and feels like "being hit by a bus". One lady who did it couldn't sleep comfortably for more than a week because she was in constant pain. Although the procedure remains rare, more and more people are deciding to do it. Between 2018 and 2024, there were more than 2,300 patients, with an overall complication rate of 3.7 percent, which remains quite high for beauty procedures.  Finally, a new photography book by polar specialists Sue Flood and Ian Dawson captures the Arctic and Antarctica. The Times shows its favourite photographs that "document life at the frozen edges of the world". You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

  2. 1d ago

    Israeli election: 'Wishful thinking' for pro- and anti-Netanyahu parties?

    PRESS REVIEW – Wednesday, October 28: Papers react to the ongoing election results in Israel. Next: Macklemore's Free Palestine tour is coming to Paris. Also: antidepressants don't work the way we thought. Finally: a sneak peek into boomer divorcées' dating lives. Both right-wing paper The Jerusalem Post and left-wing daily Haaretz talk about the record-breaking voter turnout in Israel and the fact that Arab parties are likely to win a record number of seats. Reuters shows us the exit polls from the main Israeli TV channels – Kan11, Channel 13 and N12 – all showing a very tight race with no majority and a record of 18 to 19 seats for the Arab parties. Israel Hayom writes that "Israel faces a political deadlock after the elections". Voters have delivered a verdict, but "not a decisive one", according to the right-wing paper. It says there's a gap between opinion polls in recent months and the exit polls we just saw. These, it says, are driven by developments in two key strongholds – the Arab sector and traditional Likud cities.  The Times of Israel writes that "a government can only form if the same politicians who have been in power for years decide to mend fences and break decades-long patterns". The paper says that both camps – pro- and anti-Netanyahu – are relying on "wishful thinking". A headline in The Times reads "In Gaza, the Israeli election is the last thing on people's minds". Many Gaza residents say they are preoccupied with daily survival and the elections are just "too remote". Speaking of Gaza, US rapper Macklemore has kicked off his "Free Palestine" tour and is holding a concert in Paris on Thursday. Le Parisien reports that all the profits generated from the concert will be donated to 12 charities working to support Palestinians. British paper The Guardian called his opening concert in Dublin a "triumph of a show" and gave it five stars. The review says that it felt like all the artists were truly there for the cause and not for some political glory. Fox News, however, says the show got mixed reactions, with some saying it was "out of touch" or even "performative" and that Macklemore should focus on problems closer to home.  Meanwhile, The New York Times sheds light on how antidepressants work in an article by psychiatrist and writer Awais Aftab. The headline reads "Millions use antidepressants. We still don't understand how they work". Aftab writes that for decades, the public understanding of the medicine was stuck in a narrative shaped by 1990s pharmaceutical advertising – that antidepressants work by correcting a chemical deficiency in the brain. But evidence from research shows this is actually not true. In fact, doctors and scientists don't have a clear understanding of how the pills relieve mental health problems. Today, scientists have a couple of working hypotheses. One of them is that antidepressants shift how the brain processes negative emotional information.  Finally, The Washington Post writes that in the 1990s, baby boomer women set records for divorce. Thirty years later, they are dating – but men don't always meet their standards. You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

  3. 2d ago

    Israeli election: A referendum on 'Bibi' Netanyahu?

    PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, October 27: The Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese papers break down what's at stake on election day for Israel and its neighbours. Also, the French government announces its first major concessions to protesting high school students, hoping to calm the movement. Finally, Harry Kane's Ballon d'Or means Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappé will have to wait their turn. The Times of Israel reports from Kibbutz Be'eri, where one in 10 residents was slaughtered on October 7, 2023, and where "hearts and minds will be broken if Netanyahu retains power". Meanwhile, a Jerusalem Post commentator says "form a government, you can hate each other on your own time", arguing that what Israel needs now above all is stability from a broad coalition of Zionists. Haaretz, though, says the Palestinians are the real crux: with 2 million displaced Gazans living in camps, and a policy of "settler terror" forcing Palestinians into ever smaller corners of their territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to continue the latter policy at the risk of sweeping international sanctions. Centrist leader Gadi Eisenkot, however, according to the left-leaning paper, understands that the West expects a policy shift on the West Bank.  Palestinian paper Al Quds, meanwhile, reports that an attempt to ban weapons inside polling stations in majority-Arab towns has been refused by the Israeli supreme court, raising fears of armed right-wing groups intimidating voters. Lebanese paper Al Akhbar is covering the hundreds of fixed and mobile polling stations which have been set up in southern Lebanon, Gaza and Syria for occupying Israeli soldiers to cast their votes. A message, according to Al-Diyar, that there is no current intention to withdraw. "The occupier is voting for its own occupation," says the newspaper. L'Orient-Le Jour has published a letter to an Israeli voter by a Lebanese journalist who says these elections will probably affect his life more than any in his own country. He recognises that Israel's options are politically similar in many ways, but says the election is essentially about one thing: finishing with "Bibi" in power, once and for all.  Meanwhile in France, the government "backs down", in the words of Libération, by promising to reform and replace Parcoursup, the platform by which high schoolers are offered options for higher education; to limit class sizes to 28 in the third-last year; to create 15,000 new spots in higher education courses; and to make €4 billion available for renovations of school buildings. But the calls to protest remain in place for both this coming Saturday and November 5. For journalists at L'Humanité, the government has "timidly taken out the chequ ebook": they point out that the €4 billion for renovations are in fact loans, and that the new places on university courses were announced after 10,000 spots were done away with last year. L'Opinion, meanwhile, has the headline "long live selectivity at universities," saying the prime minister has lied to the French youth twice: once by pretending the country could afford these measures, and again by pretending that higher education could exist without selectivity.  Finally, The Times vaunts Harry Kane's 73 goals across 65 games for club and country in the 2025-26 season, which have won the 33-year-old striker his first ever Ballon d'Or. French sporting newspaper L'Equipe hails "King Harry" on its website's front page, which is rather gracious given that another favourite for the title was Les Bleus' Kylian Mbappé. Spanish Marca discusses why the winner wasn't Lamine Yamal, as the jury focused this year on individual performance, rather than team successes. For Goal.com, Kane "isn't the world's best footballer...but deserved the 2026 Ballon d'Or", adding that "Yamal and Mbappe's time will surely come. But in 2026, they must bow to Harry Kane".

  4. 3d ago

    'An everyday habit': 2.5 billion lines of cocaine snorted in England per year

    PRESS REVIEW – Monday, October 26: Brazilian and international papers react to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's presidential election victory. Next: The New York Times warns that the war in Iran is entering a dangerous new phase. Also: cocaine consumption and cocaine-related crimes are surging across Britain. Finally, it turns out that wrapping children in cotton wool isn't the best parenting strategy. Brazilian papers are reacting to Lula's tight re-election. "Following his victory, Lula says he will govern for all 215 million Brazilians," reports O Globo, explaining that it's a promise of reconciliation after a campaign that revealed a deeply divided country. In another article, the Rio-based paper reports a massive mobilisation in favour of Lula for the second round. The incumbent president secured more than 10 million additional votes compared with the first round. There was a fall in abstentions, and the number of blank and spoilt ballots reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Folha de São Paulo reports that after criticism, Lula is promising to "change" his way of governing. According to the newspaper, his re-election "confirms the status of the Workers' Party leader as Brazil's greatest popular leader of this century". But the paper says it is important "that arrogance does not prevent him from acknowledging the mistakes that nearly cost him the victory" – for example, the fact that "he resorted to a flagrant misuse of the state apparatus", according to the paper.  International papers are also reacting to the Brazilian election. The Washington Post writes that Lula's win is "halting Latin America's rightward shift" and keeping "Latin America's largest democracy from joining" that regional shift. Lula secured his re-election by campaigning against democratic backsliding and the erosion of civil rights. But after his inauguration, he'll be confronted by a right-wing Congress and more conservative governors. Spanish paper El País writes that "Lula wins, but the Brazil that made him invincible no longer exists". For the paper, this fourth term "paves the way for a leadership transition within the Brazilian left" and "forces it to respond to a sense of discontent".  Next, an article in The New York Times says that the war in Iran is entering a dangerous phase. The headline reads: "A new level of threat and fear risks pushing the US and Iran back to full war". The paper says that many factors are creating heightened levels of tension and risk – for example, the upcoming elections in the US and Israel, combined with US intelligence that Iran is planning to attack Americans. This situation is pushing all sides to seek a pretext for action. Experts who spoke to the paper are warning that this is exactly how countries can escalate into full-scale war.  Elsewhere, cocaine use in England is on the rise and so are cocaine-linked crimes. The Guardian looks into an analysis of wastewater in England that suggests that people there took around 2.5 billion lines of cocaine in one year. As consumption goes up, so are the crimes linked to it, such as assaults, domestic abuse and dangerous driving. The Guardian says that this rise can be explained by the historically low cost of cocaine – pushed by overproduction and high demand – combined with high purity levels. The drug is not considered middle class anymore, another article says. It has conquered pubs, festivals and even the workplace, as many turn it into an everyday habit. It's a "crime largely hidden in plain sight", the paper says, and many people don't even consider it a crime. Finally, research suggests that giving kids more freedom and letting them do "risky play" is good for their physical and mental health, as The Times reports. You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

  5. Oct 22

    Are fresh US-Israeli strikes on Iran in the pipeline?

    PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, October 22: The New York Times's sources report plans for fresh strikes on Iran after the US midterm elections. In other news, the French Senate publishes a 30-step proposal for how to "take back control", just days after protests gave way to riots. Also, how software engineers found and patched up bugs in the language that makes up 70 percent of the internet. Finally, the story of a man for whom what happened in Vegas did not stay there. The New York Times immediately caveats its exclusive findings with a reminder that Donald Trump has "repeatedly cancelled plans to return to major combat", but it cites administration officials who believe one more major attack could be what pushes the Iranian economy to collapse and force diplomatic concessions. Officials also told New York Times journalists that joint training exercises between the US and Israel had been stepped up, and that a meeting had been held this week between Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  Drawing on this reporting, Haaretz quotes Trump's cryptic comments on Wednesday evening that the US is "not negotiating" with Iran, that "something one way or the other will happen fairly soon", and that "most people seem to think it's after the election".  Here in France, the right-leaning upper house of parliament has released a report, which was in the works since January, on "the future of maintaining order: 30 proposals to take back control". Le Figaro cites some of the senators' proposals: the confiscation of perpetrators' state benefits to pay for damage caused, more CCTV cameras and algorithmic surveillance. L'Opinion notes the report's recommendations of more police on horseback and the creation of a criminal offence of "illegal protesting".  Meanwhile, the left-wing daily Libération reports on a collective of lawyers, teachers and elected officials assembled outside the courthouse of Bobigny, a town in the Paris suburbs, to denounce the conditions in which teenagers are being detained following the weekend's unrest. They point to 10 mattresses for 86 people on Tuesday night, bottles of urine left lying around when the young people arrived, and teenagers squeezed into extremely confined spaces. "They want to traumatise them so they don't protest again," said the collective.  Elsewhere, when government websites around the world went offline on Wednesday, it was the first clue for most laypeople that something was afoot. This after a security firm used AI to discover bugs in the source code of PHP language, which is used in 70 percent of websites. The Wall Street Journal takes us behind the scenes into how the problem was discovered in August, and how a group of software engineers and security researchers have worked secretly in the months since to develop 10,000 lines of code to "patch" the bug. Supposed to be implemented on Thursday, a leak on Tuesday moved up the timeline so that the vulnerability would not be left exposed.

  6. Oct 21

    'Who are the vandals?' ask the French press after weekend riots

    PRESS REVIEW – Wednesday, October 21: The identities of some 300 suspects from Saturday's riots are emerging in the Paris courts. Meanwhile, the far-left France Unbowed party has promised legal action against the French government for claiming the radical left was responsible for the degeneration of protests. Also, as the UN warns that global warming is on track to reach 2.6°C this century, the UK greenlights new drilling in the North Sea. Finally, we look at the literary trend of hate-reading. French dailies Le Parisien and Libération describe chaotic scenes inside an overwhelmed Paris courthouse, where 300 alleged perpetrators in the weekend's riots had been referred for processing on Tuesday. Emotional parents looked on in shock, seeing their children accused of looting, while court sessions started late and were frequently adjourned due to procedural hiccups. Meanwhile, the political blame game is afoot after the government accused the radical left France Unbowed party of being behind the protests, and investigative outlet Mediapart published allegations that territorial intelligence services had been instructed "word for word, to write that France Unbowed are behind the movement when it's false". Le Figaro brings us the news that the French interior minister has categorically denied giving any such instruction, and that the national co-ordinator of the party has promised legal action. Just six months before presidential elections, the unrest seems to have benefitted far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, according to a new poll in Le Figaro. From a political crisis to the climate crisis: the UK government has given the green light to a new gas field off the coast of Scotland, The Herald explains, this despite a 2024 campaign commitment by the ruling Labour Party to issue no more new oil and gas licences for the North Sea. This comes on the same day as a UN report that projects 2.6°C of warming on pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, almost double the intended cap of 1.5°C. Finally, The Washington Post has clocked onto the new trend of hate-reading: why read a good book when you could read one you know you won't enjoy? "It's a win-win", says a writer and librarian in Petersburg, Virginia: "Either you're vindicated, or you were wrong and you learned something."

  7. Oct 20

    France imposes curfews after weekend violence, but is it too much or too little?

    PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, October 20: We look at reactions from the French press after President Emmanuel Macron's government announces a curfew in parts of the country. Is it too much or not enough? We also look at what the foreign press from Britain, Germany and the US are saying about the weekend's violence. Meanwhile, the Italian press react to violent looting and destruction of property in Italy as the government there mulls sending in 500 armed troops.  French authorities have put curfews in place in certain areas of the country after a weekend of rioting overshadowed protests against the rising cost of living. For the left-wing press, the curfews are excessive. Embattled Interior Minister Laurent Nunez features on the front of Libération, the left-wing daily, which headlines disapprovingly "Nunez dans la nasse." La nasse is a reference to the restrictive perimeter imposed on protesters, who cannot come and go as they please. In its editorial, the paper says the weekend's events have announced the end of 10 years of Macron's governance. The daily laments that even the basic maintaining of law and order is now a "complicated thing for the president". The Communist daily L'Humanité accuses the government of creating an "impasse of repression." It says that for the past 10 years, the government has chosen a policy of using the baton, which has served to aggravate the gap between the French people and ruling powers. La Croix, which tends to sit around the middle of the political spectrum, says that maintaining order is being put to the test. It explains that the way France has been policed since May 1968 is simple: a doctrine of "zero deaths". This means that police must always stay at a distance. With protesters promising new action this coming weekend, how can France maintain a balance between dissuasion and professional retaliation, it wonders? Le Figaro asks: "Why hasn't France declared a state of emergency and outlawed protests in the near future? What happened to the bill proposing that rioters be financially responsible for the damage caused to public property?" The conservative daily accuses the government of not doing enough.  In the international press, the British daily Metro sees the imposition of a curfew as a "French correction" – the paper quotes Macron as saying that France will not tolerate thieves or "extreme-left" thugs. An opinion piece in The New York Times sympathises with French students, who are "showing the rest of the world that the only way to march into a dark future is together." But it warns that their challenge is now to keep the violence at bay. In an excellent analysis, a Frankfurter Allgemeine writer argues that the hallmark of the high school protests was the "unusual solidarity" between students from impoverished suburban schools and schools in affluent neighbourhoods. It blames Macron's government for choosing a strategy of waiting it out until the autumn school holidays and ignoring their legitimate demands. It offers this sobering conclusion: "France cannot afford the necessary investments in the education of future generations as long as a majority of voters cling to early retirement and short working hours." We turn next to Italy, where similar scenes of violence amid cost-of-living protests played out over the weekend. Demonstrators clashed with police, looted shops and vandalised property in Turin, Bologna and Milan. The Italian government will dispatch 500 army troops to defend Milan as part of security measures to be approved at a cabinet meeting this Tuesday. "Try to catch them", the Communist daily Il Manifesto says on its front page. Dozens of arrests, serious charges, ethnically targeted roundups – the paper disapproves of the government's new measures, which it says will also authorise indiscriminate detention. Il Riformista, another daily, evokes Italy's Russian October – presumably a reference to the Bolshevik uprising of 1917 that ended the Russian czar's reign. The right-wing, conservative Il Tempo evokes an "intifada" on the streets of Italy. In other news, a black bear recently broke into a library, where it helped itself to the pantry cupboard! The Guardian reports that a black bear broke into a California library last week and reportedly raided snacks like peanut butter, cookies and a jar of honey. It spent more than four hours in the library, sniffing through new releases. In a moment of perfect literary timing, all of this happened as the library celebrated the 100th anniversary of the publication of a copy of "Winnie the Pooh"! You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

  8. Oct 19

    'Shame', 'anger', 'chaos': Papers react to polarising riots in France

    PRESS REVIEW – Monday, October 19: French and international papers discuss the anti-government protests that turned violent at the weekend and their aftermath across France.  Many French papers are using the word "chaos" to describe the protests over the weekend. Le Parisien writes: "After the chaos, the anger". It says that on Sunday France woke up to destruction following the protests. The headline of left-wing paper Libération reads "Questioning chaos". Libération says that due to an inadequate law enforcement strategy that failed to anticipate the widespread vandalism and looting, the protests spiralled out of control, although hundreds of thousands of people were attempting to march peacefully. The headline of right-wing paper Le Figaro reads "Shame and anger". The paper says that all across France "unprecedented scenes of violence" took place, which are causing consternation. The headline of the Communist paper L'Humanité reads "Social explosion". The paper says that the day of protests was ruined by violence and vandalism, as well as by widespread police crackdowns on demonstrators. Catholic paper La Croix asks "How did we get here?" It says that the riots and looting are fuelling fears of widespread unrest, against a backdrop of social anger. L'Opinion asks: "Who benefits from the chaos?" The paper tries to summarise what happened: Public order has broken down. The prime minister is responding solely on a political level. The president is calling for calm. Far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon continues to stir up conflict, while far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is seeking to capitalise on both fronts: public order and social issues. International papers are also reacting. German newspaper Der Spiegel asks "Is France descending into chaos and crisis?" Politically, this unrest is going to further polarise France, according to the paper. One woman is likely to benefit, it says: the far-right presidential frontrunner, Marine Le Pen. Le Pen and her National Rally party are skilfully presenting themselves as the guarantors of public order. This time, the right wing has refrained from actively supporting the movement, as it did in 2018 with the Yellow Vests, even though it expresses sympathy for the peaceful demonstrators; after all, many of their voters are among them. The headline of Spanish paper El País says "France sets Macronism ablaze". The paper calls President Emmanuel Macron's second term "out of touch with society" – but there are still six long months to go until the next presidential elections, during which the country must pass a budget and find answers to the unstoppable rise of the far right.  The New York Times says there's "shock and recrimination", a day after the "huge riots". The paper says that during his speech, Macron "offered no concrete concessions". It reminds us that government officials and far-right leaders accuse the far left of stirring up the unrest. The left wing, meanwhile, blames the government for budget decisions and policies they said have spurred public anger. British paper The Times says that Paris was "divided by protests". Many are pointing the fingers at those who rioted and looted, saying the level of violence was worse than during the Yellow Vest protests in 2018. Others say that police repression pushed people to become increasingly violent. A 20-year-old art student told The Times: "Instead of listening to us, the government sends in the police to attack us". "We no longer live in a democracy" is the headline in the independent Russian paper Novaya Gazeta. It's a quote from one of the protesters who spoke to the paper. She says that "the Republic has been shaken to its core – we no longer live in a democracy where we can assemble," adding that "the police are seizing power through violence".  You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

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About

An overview of the stories making the French and international newspaper headlines. From Monday to Friday live at 7:20am and 9:20am Paris time.

Information

  • Channel
    FRANCE 24 English
  • Creator
    FRANCE 24 English
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    38
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © France Médias Monde
  • Show Website
    Press Review

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