European press review

Elections are the flavour of the day, with defeats for ruling parties in Germany and Hungary playing second fiddle to the far-right's success in France.

Political earthquake

"The Earthquake" is how Le Figaro's front-page banner headline describes the first round of the French presidential elections, which saw National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen qualify for the second round at the expense of Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin.

The large number of left-wing and far-left candidacies particularly ate into Jospin's vote

Le Figaro

Incumbent President Jacques Chirac leads the field with approximately 20% of the votes, with far-right candidate Le Pen getting about 17% - a percentage point more than Prime Minister Jospin.

"The large number of left-wing and far-left candidacies particularly ate into Jospin's vote," the Paris daily notes, saying that Jospin failed to get a clear political message across during the campaign.

With turnout at just over 70%, the paper says that the "record level of abstentions for a presidential election weighed heavily on the first round".

Liberation sees the results as a "catastrophe" and adds that French people are "gambling with democracy" and "playing with fire".

France, it says, is a disgrace to democracy.

It adds that the country believed that the far-right was finished, but says in fact it "has never been so strong".

The functioning of French democracy is in question

Geneva's Le Temps

The paper also points to a lacklustre campaign, suggesting that voters were showing their "disappointment" with Chirac and Jospin.

People on the left abstained, showing "real dissatisfaction" with the left-wing coalition government, adding that the competition between the leftist candidates didn't help.

However, the left-of-centre daily points to Le Pen's "skill" in taking advantage of the situation.

Constitutional threat

Geneva's Le Temps describes the results as a "crushing defeat" for the prime minister's "sensible approach to politics".

It calls the result a "harsh and precise message" to those in power, and adds that "the functioning of French democracy is in question".

The institutions of the Fifth Republic "will not be left unscathed", it says.

The French have fired a warning shot across the bows of their political elite

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Italy's La Stampa says the two main candidates failed to talk about "the issues that really count".

These included global terrorism and a world changed by 11 September, as well as xenophobic and anti-Semitic tendencies that "are returning to ravage the nation".

Another Italian daily, La Repubblica, describes the outcome of yesterday's French vote as "a disaster for the Socialist Party candidate and for an extremely divided left".

The paper is another to point to the low turnout.

"In this climate of great uncertainty, the only certainty is the victory of abstentionism," the paper says.

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also sees the result as a "political earthquake".

It says Jospin "has suffered a terrible defeat and has plunged the entire French left into a severe crisis".

Although the paper acknowledges that polls showed voters were disillusioned with the two mainstream candidates, Jospin and Chirac, it calls Le Pen's gains "astonishing".

Jacques Chirac is still seen as the favourite to win the second round, the paper says, but "the French have fired a warning shot across the bows of their political elite".

For London's The Independent, the success of Le Pen and the elimination of Jospin is "a sad comment on the state of French politics".

However, the shock result - in the paper's view - owes more to the general turn-off from the election rather than any massive resurgence in support for the far-right in French politics.

Hungarian changes

Left-wing parties did better in Hungary, where Nepszabadsag says the opposition Socialists and their Free Democrat allies will be able to form a government.

However, following second round gains for the Fidesz party, the new government will be "the most fragile in the history of Hungary's' modern democracy".

The forces which wanted to replace the government can thank the arrogance and blindness of those in power for their opportunity to form a government

Nepszabadsag

The centre-left daily adds that outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban will probably be remembered as "a clever technician", noting that "he has not managed to develop into a statesman".

According to the paper, the old truth that "elections are not won by opposition parties but lost by the ruling parties" has come true in Hungary too.

"The forces which wanted to replace the government can thank the arrogance and blindness of those in power for their opportunity to form a government," the paper says.

Magyar Nemzet takes the opportunity to praise Hungarian voters for steering clear of extremists - unlike the French, the daily notes.

The paper says it is worth asking why the minority far-right Hungarian Justice and Life Party "has caused almost historic fear in the international press for months, and why the same newspapers... have failed to express their fear about the current French elections".

Tongue in cheek, it suggests that as Hungary "is so much more important and stronger" than France, a Hungarian party with 4% of the votes is more able to influence the fate of the world than a French party with four times the support.

"I cannot even think about another possible explanation," the columnist says - "that the always well-informed international press has double standards."

German rejection

Defeat for the left in France shares space in Germany's newspapers - with defeat for the left in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.

There, the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder suffered a big loss - expected, says Berliner Zeitung, but "even worse than expected".

Six months before the general election, it says, this is bad news for the re-election hopes of the chancellor and his party.

Hamburg's Die Welt says the opposition Christian Democratic Union and the smaller Free Democrats have scored a "spectacular victory".

In a commentary entitled "Comeback of the middle-class", Die Welt says the election result is a clear sign that social democracy in Germany is in a worse state than many had thought.

Furthermore, it adds, the result appears to indicate a desire for reform among Germany's middle-class voters, brought on by the country's current economic stagnation.

Catholic cast out

Newspapers in Russia look at a fresh row with the Catholic Church, as the Russian authorities deport a bishop for the second time in a month.

Polish bishop Jerzy Mazur, head of a vast diocese covering Siberia and the Russian Far East based in Irkutsk, was refused re-entry to Russia late Friday by border guards who withdrew his multiple-entry visa at a Moscow airport.

Creating so loud a scandal with the Vatican, Moscow puts the Orthodox Church leadership in a very difficult position

Nezavisimaya Gazeta

Business daily Kommersant says that the Russian Foreign Ministry is the first state body to actively move to support the Russian Orthodox Church in the wake of the Vatican establishing four diocese in Russia.

Izvestiya, meanwhile, quotes the Irkutsk cathedral's press secretary as saying that Mazur's exclusion, and that of priest Stefano Caprio, are part of a pattern that included the suspension of the construction of a church in the western town of Pskov and a picket on Sunday outside the Irkutsk cathedral during mass.

The newspaper reports that protesters at the picket in Irkutsk called for the abolition of the diocese and the closure of the Polish consulate in the city.

It writes that they carried signs saying "We are for the belief of our ancestors, but they confuse our youth."

Nezavisimaya Gazeta also notes that it is the first time such support has been forthcoming, but its view is that the Kremlin is playing a double game.

It says that Moscow wants Pope John Paul II to visit Russia soon, adding that President Vladimir Putin has spoken of a visit before.

"Creating so loud a scandal with the Vatican, Moscow puts the Orthodox Church leadership in a very difficult position, as the campaign against the Catholics will first be blamed on it," the newspaper says.

"To dampen down the scandal, the Moscow Patriarchate should make a broad gesture of goodwill regarding the Vatican," Nezavisimaya adds: "To agree to a visit of the Pope."

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