European press review

Today's European newspapers continue to reel from Jean-Marie Le Pen's shock success in the first round of the French elections, while the Pope's crisis meeting with the US cardinals also attracts attention.

France: Cholera or plague?

The Nouvel Observateur believes the French people face "a sad choice" between two diseases.

The choice - as the paper puts it - is between "a discredited [President Jacques] Chirac for whom re-election is the only means of escape from the judges", and "the populist xenophobe and backward-looking Le Pen who wants to isolate France and break up Europe".

Still, it ironises, "better to be struck by cholera, which can be treated, than by the plague".

The bigger Chirac's victory on 5 May, the paper says, "the more will it be a victory of the anti-Le Pen camp as opposed to a victory for Chirac himself."

Le Monde is in no doubt that Sunday's results have "sullied" France's image abroad.

"Rarely before had France fallen into such universal disrepute," the paper says.

From now on, "Paris will find it hard to make itself heard" internationally, and there are bound to be "diplomatic consequences and perhaps economic ones".

France, "the dispenser of lessons" to others, has "been caught red-handed" at the polls, the paper says.

"Sunday's vote," it concludes, "confirmed one of the components of France's image abroad: the impression of arrogance created by the gap between what France says and the actual reality."

View from abroad

Ukraine's Den agrees, recalling that France was "first in the EU to propose sanctions against Austria" after the far-right Freedom Party joined the government coalition.

"What conclusions will the French take?" the paper wonders.

Switzerland's Le Temps mocks a concept often used by France to explain to foreigners the uniqueness of all things French.

Some voters last Sunday were under the influence of an "hallucinogenic drug" known as "the French exception", the paper says.

Several varieties have been developed, the paper says, and the strongest is known as "the French identity".

It was an overdose of this drug, "supplied by Le Pen Pharmacists", that led one French voter in five to support the far-right candidate.

There is a strong need for a substitute drug equally capable of "making people proud and happy" but containing "less dangerous ingredients", the paper concludes.

Newspapers in Bulgaria aren't worried about such a vote happening there, although that doesn't seem to be a reason for celebration.

"Our Le Pen will be a gypsy," the tabloid 24 Chassa writes. "Nationalism here exists only in books, it is imported and futile."

Meanwhile, a professor rules out Bulgarians turning to national socialism.

"Bulgarians hate each other so much that we have no time left for the non-Bulgarians," Professor Nikolai Vassilev tells the Sega daily.

Vienna's Der Standard says there are more similarities between George W Bush and Mr Le Pen than the US president is prepared to admit.

It argues that his expression of concern over Mr Le Pen's electoral success is compromised by Mr Bush's talk of "good and evil", which is itself not far removed from right-wing populism.

The paper says Mr Bush's rhetoric and world view "are closer to Le Pen than to his international propagandist Tony Blair", adding that Mr Bush should therefore "be concerned about himself".

Cardinals' sins

After Pope John Paul II on Tuesday told the 12 American cardinals summoned to the Vatican that there is no place in the priesthood for paedophilia, Britain's Independent calls for "an act of contrition" from the Catholic Church.

The Pope's statement, it says, "does not go nearly far enough".

The paper thinks that the pope should not ask just for "expressions of regret" but for "the resignation of all 12 US cardinals present in Rome".

Germany's Berliner Zeitung considers that "John Paul II has remained silent for far too long." It puts forward an idea as to why that might be.

"The Pope," the paper suggests, "finds nothing more difficult than to publicly talk about sex."

"The crimes committed by Catholic priests could cost the church a lot of money," the paper observes, as victims are demanding compensation on a massive scale.

John Paul II has remained silent for far too long.

Berliner Zeitung

The Pope gets better press in Bulgaria, which is gearing up for his visit in late May.

Standard News describes him as "the spiritual father of the workers and the underprivileged".

Homosexuality - a criminal offence?

The Russian political spotlight has turned on homosexuality after a group of MPs proposed outlawing sex between men.

Several newspapers report on Tuesday's parliamentary proceedings - a first step that could lead to one-to-five year jail terms for men having gay sex.

Izvestiya quotes one of the amendment's chief proponents, Gennadiy Raykov, the leader of the pro-Kremlin People's Deputy faction.

Raykov says the proposal would defend Russians' "spiritual and moral foundations".

"Is this phenomenon characteristic of our people?" he asks. "No! It's perversion!"

Raykov believes the spread of diseases such as Aids and moral deterioration in society had added to the initiative's urgency.

The mass-circulation Komsomolskaya Pravda follows up on the health aspect of Raykov's argument.

"It damages health. That's not me talking, but the Ministry of Health," the paper quotes him as saying.

"In China, these anomalies are treated with electric shocks, and in a couple of months they're all normal again," he says, adding that "normal" Russians would support him.

Both papers also give play to the proposal's opponents.

Izvestiya reports that a Russian leading gay information centre "condemns the initiative" and promises to respond with "acts of civil disobedience" if the amendments are passed.

The popular Moskovskiy Komsomolets, on the other hand, questions Raykov's motives, saying that a senior official in President Vladimir Putin's administration recently admonished pro-Kremlin factions for failing to come up with some vivid and exciting initiatives.

"It doesn't get any more vivid than that," the paper adds.

Clearly intent on further mischief at Raykov's expense, Moskovskiy Komsomolets concludes its article by noting that "some sexual pathologists believe that an exaggerated interest in issues of sexual orientation sometimes provides evidence of closet homosexuality."

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