L’élection présidentielle vue par la presse étrangère

Infographie : François Descheemaekere

[Euractiv]

Les urnes de la colère 

Pour la presse européenne, les résultats du premier tour de l'élection présidentielle sont « une claque » pour Nicolas Sarkozy et son bilan. Son score et celui de Marine Le Pen expriment un malaise lié à la crise économique.

La France est en colère, titre la presse européenne au lendemain du premier tour de l'élection présidentielle française. Une fureur qui vise d'abord le président sortant. "C'est un vote uppercut, qui a le KO pour objectif : il met Nicolas Sarkozy à terre ce dimanche sous le coup du cumul des défaites. Et c'est la France, déterminée, en masse et en colère qui lui montre la porte", estime Béatrice Delvaux dans le quotidien belge Le Soir. "Ras-le-bol" En votant contre lui dimanche 22 avril, les Français ont tout d'abord fustigé son bilan, ses "promesses non tenues", mais également exprimé un "ras-le-bol immense de sa personne et de son mode de fonctionnement". En Allemagne, les quotidiens pointent également le profond désarroi des Français vis-à-vis du président sortant.

L’économie mondiale en danger

Infographie : François Descheemaekere

The Global Economy at Risk
 
[The New York Times]

Editorial

Anxieties about Europe dominated this week’s meetings in Washington of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Fund officials warned that the euro-zone crisis poses a grave danger to a weak global economy. Europe’s leaders, masters of denial, are still insisting on destructive austerity. The danger was underscored by the latest Brookings Institution-Financial Times index of global economic recovery. The index, which measures economic and financial activity as well as confidence, shows that the world economy has deteriorated since last fall. Europe has been hard hit by its leaders’ continued insistence on austerity for all.

L’Europe après la crise

Infographie : François Descheemaekere

Europe After the Crisis
 
[The New York Times]

Andrew Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs and director of the European Union program at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. 

[…] Over the past two years, the eurozone members have done a remarkable job managing the short-term symptoms of the crisis, although the costs have been great. Yet the long-term challenge remains: making European economies converge — that is, assuring that their domestic macro-economic behaviors are sufficiently similar to one another to permit a single monetary policy at a reasonable cost. For this to happen, both creditor countries, such as Germany, and the deficit countries in southern Europe must align their trends in public spending, competitiveness, inflation and other areas.[…] Aligning the Continent’s economies will first require Europe to reject the common misdiagnoses of today’s crisis. The problem is not primarily one of profligate public sectors or broken private sectors in southern European debtor countries.

Proposition Franco-Allemande sur Schengen : un vote de défiance vis à vis de l’Europe

Franco-German Schengen Proposal : A Vote of No Confidence in Europe
 
[Spiegel Online]

Germany and France's joint proposal to allow Schengen-zone countries to temporarily reintroduce border controls as a means of last resort might sound harmless. But doing so would damage one of the strongest symbols of European unity and perhaps even contribute to the EU's demise.

Germany and France are serious this time. During next week's meeting of European Union interior ministers, the two countries plan to start a discussion about reintroducing national border controls within the Schengen zone. According to the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and his French counterpart, Claude Guéant, have formulated a letter to their colleagues in which they call for governments to once again be allowed to control their borders as "an ultima ratio" -- that is, measure of last resort -- "and for a limited period of time." They reportedly go on to recommend 30-days for the period. […] But the proposal is far from harmless and would throw Europe back decades.

De plus en plus de travailleurs sous-employés en Europe

Europe's army of 'underemployed' workers grows 

[Euractiv]

Almost nine million people in the European Union were considered “underemployed” in 2011, according to new Eurostat figures. These numbers add to the growing ranks of nearly 25 million unemployed in the EU, highlighting a ticking social time-bomb.

Some 42 million workers in the EU were employed part-time in 2011, according to a survey by the European statistical office, Eurostat, up from 41.3 million the year before. Of those, 8.6 million – more than 20% – said they were available to work more, a situation of so-called "underemployment" that is raising concern at the European Commission. “Many people who are self-employed, in part-time or fixed term contracts, continue to be inadequately covered by social protection," the European Commission said on 18 April in a strategy for a 'job-rich recovery'.

Le gouvernement espagnol décide des coupes massives dans l’éducation et la santé.

Infographie : François Descheemaekere

Cabinet approves massive education and healthcare cuts. Welfare state trimmed by 10 billion euros

[El Pais]

The conservative Popular Party government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday announced education and healthcare cuts of 10 billion euros, the biggest assault on the welfare state since Spain returned to democratic ways. The cutbacks come on top of savings of 27 billion euros in the 2012 state budget aimed at meeting the daunting challenge of reining back the deficit from 8.5 percent of GDP last year to 5.3 percent this year. Both education and healthcare are in the hands of the country’s 17 regions, which were largely responsible for the failure to meet the deficit goal last year of six percent of GDP.

Le Brésil émergent, un géant du XXIe siècle ?

Infographie : François Descheemaekere

[Diploweb]

Axelle DEGANS, Agrégée d’histoire, Professeure d’histoire, de géographie et de géopolitique en classes préparatoires économiques et commerciales, auteur du livre Les pays émergents : de nouveaux acteurs, Ed. Ellipses, collection CQFD, 2011.

Pays des cycles économiques, le Brésil faisait figure, il y a peu encore, de grand pays du Tiers Monde. Ce géant latino-américain passe du "jaguar" au "grand émergent" et incarne peut-être même l’avenir du monde dans des domaines stratégiques. Cette émergence contribue au basculement du monde, les lignes bougent en sa faveur. Le Brésil est un géant tropical, il couvre 47% de l’Amérique du Sud à lui seul. Il s’inscrit donc dans les « grands » pays après la Russie, le Canada, la Chine et les Etats-Unis. Cette immensité est longtemps un handicap comme le révèle l’occupation humaine essentiellement littorale jusqu’à l’intériorisation avec la création de Brasilia au début des années 1960. Elle devient un atout en termes de profondeur stratégique et de possibilités hors normes.