In the press - Valérie Pécresse, the "bulldozer" who will have to reconquer the center ... and the extreme right

The +

On the front page of the press, the epidemic situation in France, where a health defense council is being held today.

“Ready for new efforts?” Asks 

.

Neither the curfew nor the confinement are envisaged, but the return of the gauges in closed public places and the wearing of the mask everywhere are again "possible". "The executive persists in its strategy 'to convince rather than to coerce'", notes the newspaper, which judges this trajectory "slow but sure", both towards collective immunity and towards the presidential election, in a little more than four months now. France, confronted, like the rest of the planet, with the emergence of the omicron variant - this is the bad surprise of Christmas, and it has to do with the drawing by Ranson, published by

. “So, Delta, what did you ask for Christmas?” Santa Claus asks the Covid-19. "A little brother," replies the virus.

Also on the front page of the European press, Pope Francis' call for solidarity with migrants. From the Greek island of Lesbos, the sovereign pontiff denounced the indifference towards the migrants who drown while seeking to reach Europe. "Let's stop this sinking of civilization!", Launched the Pope. An appeal relayed by the Swiss daily

, which recalls that the cause of refugees is the "leitmotif" of the pontificate of Pope Francis. The latter regretted, once again, this weekend, that "Europe persists in procrastinating" in the face of the arrivals of migrants and that it is "sometimes blocked" and "torn by nationalist egoisms". The "anger" of Pope Francis, also mentioned by

.

The French newspaper notes that the European Union, "which advocated the reception of migrants during the 2015 crisis, is now tightening access to asylum", but warns that "Brussels would be wrong to think that it can pick up the pieces with Poland ", today at the forefront of the migratory crisis," by using the European treaties "to try to make it accept more migrants.

# ÀlaUne de La Croix:

➡️ Migrants, the pope's anger against Europe

➡️ Afghanistan on the verge of collapse

➡️ How Valérie Pécresse dug her furrow pic.twitter.com/N59Tsag58I

- La Croix (@LaCroix) December 6, 2021

A word, also, of the tour, this weekend, of Emmanuel Macron in the Gulf countries, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

 underlines the role of "mediator" of the French president, between Iran and the West, on the one hand, and between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, on the other hand. A mediation that would have a price, according to the pan-Arab newspaper in London, which claims the sale, by France, of 80 Rafale to the United Arab Emirates. "Emmanuel Macron becomes the first Western leader to visit Saudi Arabia since the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi", this exiled Saudi journalist, assassinated three years ago, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey: in Washington ,

notes that the president "did not say", at the end of his mediation, if Riyadh was going, in particular, to reverse its decision to stop all imports from Lebanon, which it accuses of being in the hands of the Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian Shiite party.

Emmanuel Macron's visit to the Gulf countries, also greeted with skepticism by

, worried about seeing "the authoritarian Arab countries" succeed in "imposing their political vision" with "colossal and beneficial orders for French industry" .

, where Coco's drawing shows Emmanuel Macron rejoicing over the end of "checkered relations" with Saudi Arabia. "Ah! Ah !, she is good", reacts Mohamed ben Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who is accused of having ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, whose body would have been dismembered, according to the intelligence services. Turkish and American.

In France, the campaign for the presidential election of next year is accelerating, with the election, Saturday, on the right, of Valérie Pécresse, designated candidate of the Republicans. The election of the president of the Ile de France region against the very right-handed Eric Ciotti, is presented as the manifestation of the "resurrection" of the right, by

, which sees Valérie Pécresse capable of "competing with Emmanuel Macron" - on condition of not "weakening" his message, "under the pretext of 'synthesis' or of 'enlargement'". "The campaign will be won on the right: faced with supporters of 'refocusing', Valérie Pécresse will have to hold on," said the newspaper.

In the United Kingdom,

, which evokes the efforts of Valérie Pécresse "to escape what she called her unfair image of 'bourgeois blonde' of Versailles", presents her as a "bulldozer", likely to prevail over Emmanuel Macron. He underlines, however, the difficulty for Valérie Pécresse to have to "win back (at the same time) the voters of the center and (those) of the extreme right". A difficulty which would make "slim" the chances of Valérie Pécresse to qualify for the second round, according to

, which however notes, with caution, that "a lot can happen in four months, especially with a new wave of Covid-19 and a new potentially nasty variant".

We do not leave each other on this. Before I tell you tomorrow, at least one story that ends well. The

website 

reports that a young Savoyard mountaineer, who had discovered in the Mont-Blanc massif, in 2013, a treasure composed, among other things, of emeralds and sapphires ... and who had wisely brought it back to the gendarmerie, finally had the right to keep it. French law provides that if no heir is found within two years after the discovery of a treasure, whoever finds it has the right to appropriate it - well not totally, since half must be returned to the municipality where the treasure was found. According to the American site, the precious stones could have been transported aboard a plane which had crashed in 1966 on Mont Blanc. The accident had killed more than 110 people, including the pioneer of the Indian nuclear program.

Find the Press Review every morning on France 24 (Monday to Friday, at 7.20 am and 9.20 am Paris time).

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