European press review

Iraqi Kurds dumped on the French coast like so much human flotsam seem likely to benefit from a change of heart by the French Government. World statesmen are beating a path to Washington. The Americans have found another spy in their midst, and the Swiss, accused of money-laundering, can't quite make up their minds about how European they are.

Boat people, Corsica, and the republican tradition

An editorial in the leading Paris daily Le Monde welcomes the French Government's about-turn on the subject of the 912 Iraqi Kurds aboard the rotting hulk deliberately run aground on the Cote d'Azur.

In effect, the paper explains, the authorities' reaction "was initially particularly harsh", warning the refugees "not to nourish any hopes of integration in our country".

But Paris, realising that "public opinion seemed to be warming to the Kurds", softened its line, releasing nearly all the refugees from their "reception centre" and allowing them to apply for asylum in France.

"The government was right," the paper says, because all evidence points to the fact that, "they were fleeing persecution rather than poverty, and in such cases the right of asylum is in keeping with our republican tradition".

France's republican tradition had another airing on Wednesday when the president evoked it at a cabinet meeting to justify his reservations over the government's plans to give the troubled island of Corsica greater powers to run its own affairs.

As Le Nouvel Observateur reports, "Jacques Chirac warned the government against a bill which, in his opinion, is in breach of two of the founding principles of republican tradition".

These principles dating back to the French revolution are "everyone's equality before the law, and the indivisibility of the republic", the paper quotes the president as saying.

"If a special case is made for Corsica... the island will gradually detach itself from France," President Chirac added. "On the other hand, if the same provisions are demanded by other regions... the principle of indivisibility will no longer be observed."

Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau agrees that the row over the Corsican devolution bill concerns the future of France as a whole.

It believes that President Chirac has given in to Prime Minister Lionel Jospin by allowing the bill to be debated, because he wanted to avoid a major crisis. As for Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, he wants the bill to succeed because otherwise Corsican nationalists might resume their violent campaign.

"The real issue," the paper says, "is what the future shape of France should be: a centralised unitary state... or a decentralised republic that grants its regions greater autonomy?"

All roads lead to Washington

The German papers have contrasting appraisals of the results of the visit that Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer concluded in Washington on Wednesday.

In a commentary tellingly entitled "The underling", Berlin's Die Tageszeitung says Mr Fischer failed to stand up to the Americans because he felt vulnerable after recent revelations about his past as a left-wing activist.

For the paper, the foreign minister used the language of subservience when he said it was not for Germany to criticise the Americans for bombing Baghdad.

"Mr Fischer's visit gave the impression that it was essential for him to know whether or not his opposite number Colin Powell had forgiven him for having opposed the Vietnam War," the paper says.

But Die Welt, also in Berlin, disagrees.

In two commentaries it praises Joschka Fischer for what it calls his "refreshingly reasonable behaviour" and his "sympathetic words" on the subject of the air strikes against Iraq.

The paper sees Mr Fischer's statement that it was not for Germany to criticise the United States, as what it calls "the key phrase".

"The foreign minister," the paper concludes, "provided proof of loyalty to the alliance, which is essential for us Germans."

Also Washington-bound is British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has an appointment on Friday with the new tenant in the White House. Mr Blair is causing the Swiss Tribune de Geneve no end of worries over what the paper sees as "London's ambivalent attitude to its European allies".

"What can one think of a state that, without a second thought, systematically accords top priority to its 'special relationship' with Washington while at the same time claiming a desire to play a greater role in Europe, particularly in the area of defence?" the paper asks, more in rhetoric than in query.

As the "faithful mouthpiece of its closest ally", as the paper puts it, Britain "has as good as vetoed the drawing up of a European defence and security policy which might displease Washington", and thus "nipped in the bud the emergence of a European political entity on the international scene".

"Tony Blair's European activism, while marking a departure from the immobility of his Conservative predecessors, is therefore just an illusion, since it leads to the same result of keeping Europe dependent on the United States," the paper concludes.

"Agreeing in English is easier," says the Russian Izvestiya of Tony Blair's forthcoming travels. Maintaining Britain's "special relationship" with America remains Britain's top priority, it believes.

It adds that Mr Blair's emphasis on the transatlantic relationship is perhaps a way of quashing some earlier fears that relations between London and Washington might cool after the Republican victory.

The second oldest profession

"Diamonds, which Robert Hanssen got from Russia, are for ever. We know that from a James Bond film. Spying too is for ever: We know that from life itself," says the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza of the case of the senior FBI counter-intelligence officer charged on Tuesday with spying for Russia.

"The world's second oldest profession after prostitution has not disappeared with the fall of the Berlin Wall," the paper notes. "The United States's espionage machine snoops around everything and everyone... it's just routine," it adds. "But for Russia today this 'method' is even more important than during the Cold War."

"Hanssen has caused America great damage. But the hullabaloo surrounding his capture... naturally also has political undertones: It is a part of the message sent by Bush to Putin, himself a former Soviet spy of 15 years' standing," the paper concludes.

The French Liberation disagrees - but only on being reminded more of George Smiley than James Bond. "The case of Robert Philip Hanssen brings to mind the best plots concocted by John Le Carre," it says.

"In less than 24 hours, the revelations about this quiet and unassuming man... have launched a broad debate in the United States on national security and relations with Russia," the paper adds.

"Today the FBI had to admit that it still lacked the means to evaluate fully the damage caused by Hanssen's activities.

"For the new president, this case... could prove delicate and harm future relations with Moscow."

The hills are alive with euroscepticism

Early next month the people of Switzerland will be asked whether they think their government should start negotiations without delay on joining the European Union. The latest opinion polls lead the Swiss Le Temps to fear that the consultation may prove "a disaster for the pro-Europeans".

The paper points out that, for several decades now, the federal authorities keep saying that the time for EU membership negotiations is not yet ripe. "We have been hearing this line for the past 40 years, and at this rate we shall be hearing it for the next 40," it complains. "There is always a majority willing to postpone the difficult tasks."

"The publication of the French parliamentarians' report on money-laundering in Switzerland shows, regardless of whether the charges are justified or not, which way the wind is blowing," the paper says.

"With the passing of time, our isolation will become less and less understandable, and the European Union will become less and less understanding," it warns.

The Paris-based International Herald Tribune has details on the report mentioned by Le Temps. Published on Wednesday by a French parliamentary commission, its conclusions (since hotly denied by the Swiss authorities) accuse Switzerland of (as the paper puts it) "paying only lip service to banking standards intended to fight organised crime".

The report "concluded that Switzerland was holding about one-third of all the funds, estimated to total $25 trillion, lodged in off-shore accounts designed to provide secrecy and tax protection to depositors", the paper says. "That figure would put Switzerland near the top in the list of world havens for hot money collected by drug dealers and other criminals or by dictators skimming their nations' treasuries and aid income."

The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.