Xi Jinping's go to to France: “A fool's game?” | EUROtoday

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On the entrance web page of the official press, the go to, immediately and tomorrow, to France, of Chinese President Xi Jinping, for the sixtieth anniversary of Franco-Chinese diplomatic relations.

“A visit to consolidate strong ties”: The China Daily assures that “the strengthening of Franco-Chinese friendship will also be a boon for the rest of the world”. The Global Times, one other official each day, maintains that the “links” between France and China “benefit their peoples”, and contribute to “global stability”, explaining that Xi Jinping goes to France, but additionally, within the course of, in Serbia and Hungary, as a result of France was “the first major Western country to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China”, as a result of Serbia is “China's first strategic partner in Central and Eastern Europe, and an ironclad friend” of Beijing, and Hungary “an important partner in advancing cooperation” throughout the framework of the brand new Silk Roads. In a letter revealed by Le FigaroXi Jinping, in full seduction operation, praises “the unique charm” of France, “cradle of so many great philosophers, writers and artists who have inspired humanity”, promising that China will work with France to “preserve peace and stability in the world.

Read alsoXi Jinping in France: Chinese diplomacy of the “personal touch”

The French press is less enthusiastic. For Le FigaroXi Jinping's visit would above all aim to “neutralize” Europe, to “deepen the divisions of the Western bloc”. The echoes recall, for their part, the context of the war in Ukraine and commercial rivalries, which “deteriorated” relations between Paris and Beijing. Tensions also mentioned by Humanitywhich denounces the “idiot's recreation” between Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron, who is torn between “American energy, the European “third way” and the financial alternatives supplied by Beijing”. The New Obs bluntly accuses the French president of showing “the identical blindness” towards Xi Jinping as towards Vladimir Putin. “Emmanuel Macron needs to be the champion of Europe's 'strategic autonomy', however his coverage in direction of Beijing, which avoids delicate topics, confuses his message and harms his ambition”, scathes the weekly. On sensitive subjects, The world indicates that nearly a thousand demonstrators, mainly Tibetans and Uyghurs, mobilized on Sunday in Paris to protest against the visit of the Chinese president.

Xi Jinping's visit is also closely scrutinized by the foreign press. The Swiss newspaper The weather evokes “unsure reunions” and expresses his doubts about the attitude consisting of “wooing” China, because of its “supposed capability to curb the warlike drift of its Russian ally”. “Between the arguments over electric cars, cognac and Ukraine, the French president's dinner with Xi Jinping may not be much fun,” predicts the American website Politico, presenting the two leaders as “two emperors able to struggle”. Finally The New York Times confirms that the Chinese leader “has fastidiously chosen the three international locations” where he is visiting, France, Serbia and Hungary, because all three “help, in keeping with him, to various levels Beijing's efforts in favor of a brand new world order.

In Germany, the violent assault on Friday by SPD MEP Matthias Elcke provoked outrage. Seriously injured whereas placing up posters for the European elections in Dresden, Matthias Elcke continues to be hospitalized. A 17-year-old younger man went to the police on Sunday, claiming to be one of many perpetrators of his assault, in keeping with Der Spiegelwhich studies that 1000’s of individuals demonstrated, additionally on Sunday, on the scene of the assault – a few of them denouncing strategies “comparable to those of Hitler's SA” within the Thirties. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is alarmed by a local weather paying homage to the violence underneath “the Weimar Republic”, earlier than Hitler's arrival in energy, recalling that assaults concentrating on elected officers, environmentalists particularly, have elevated in Germany this yr electoral marketing campaign.

The journal Die Zeit is worried a couple of diploma of violence “unprecedented in recent history” – violence for which the SPD attributes duty to the far-right AfD occasion, which the journal is cautious to not level the finger at, all by warning in opposition to speeches about “the so-called cultural war” which might pit “allegedly disconnected elites on their cargo bikes and a hard-working population”, which might have notably made environmentalists “the targets of an allegedly necessary self-defense”. This discourse on the true or supposed “disconnection” of the elites, feeds right here in France the discourse, amongst others, of the National Rally, which now stands “more and more at a distance” from the AfD, its ally. 'throughout the Rhine, in keeping with Le Parisien/Today in Francewhich specifies that the occasion of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella doesn’t nonetheless want to “completely sever ties with an important formation for its European group, Identity and Democracy.

A word, finally, about the ban, since Sunday, of the Qatari channel Al Jazeerain Israel. The Guardian reports criticism from press freedom defenders, who speak of “a darkish day for the media”, while foreign journalists are banned by Israel from accessing Gaza, where the war has already left more than 34,000 dead . Criticisms relayed by the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretzwhich denounces an “anti-democratic decision” and sees Israel “taking another step on the slippery slope leading it to become a country that silences the people”.

See alsoPress freedom: in Gaza, journalists risk their lives to inform

Freedom of the press, which is also being discussed in Italy. La Repubblica announces that journalists from Raï, the Italian public television, are on strike today, to denounce their working conditions, but also a management increasingly under the orders, according to them, of the hard right in power.

We won't leave each other on this. We always say that in France, “we don't have oil, however we have now concepts” – a somewhat false expression, nevertheless. Release reports that the government has discreetly given the green light to the expansion of an oil site in Seine-et-Marne, south of Paris. The problem is that the exploitation of this well would threaten a crucial water table providing drinking water for 180,000 Ile-de-France residents. Finally, it’s impossible not to mention the shutdown, in France, of the legendary show “Des Numéros et des Lettres”. Paf's oldest broadcast, after Lord's Day, was broadcast for the first time in 1972. After 52 years of existence, “farewell”, subsequently, in 5 letters. The account is nice. Read in The Parisian.

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