European press review

The shock of seeing 12 French citizens killed by a suicide bomber in Pakistan has focused France's attention on international terrorism.

At home, the French papers ponder the new government line-up. And elsewhere in Europe, Victory Day celebrations are scrutinised.

Terrorism's "new horizons"

Contrary to what too many leading French officials have suggested, September 11 is not just a date in the past

Liberation

French papers are dominated by pictures of the blast site in Karachi, where 12 French naval defence contractors lost their lives in Wednesday's suicide bomb attack on a bus.

"It cannot be repeated too often," says Paris's Liberation, "that contrary to what too many leading French officials have suggested, September 11 is not just a date in the past."

And the paper suggests that the al-Qaeda network - which senior French officials have blamed for the attack - is alive and well. There is "every indication" that it is "regrouping", the paper says.

Liberation goes on to liken the US-led war against terror in Afghanistan to "dealing a mighty kick to an anthill".

It has "undoubtedly shaken" the organisation, it says, "but has also opened up new horizons, notably in Pakistan".

Security issues

President Musharraf must hold his nerve, while foreigners hold their breath. There may be more to come

The Times

The paper also criticises the French authorities for taking the issue of security for the contractors in Pakistan too lightly. "Unfortunately", it says, "Paris obviously did not want to upset one of France's biggest arms purchasers".

An article in Le Monde explains how naval cooperation between France and Pakistan began in the 1970s when Islamabad asked Paris to help it put together a submarine fleet and provide the subsequent maintenance.

It cites "heavy" French involvement with the Pakistani navy and suggests France is concerned about its niche there. Given Pakistan's support for US operations in Afghanistan, the paper says, Paris fears that the US will provide Islamabad with "substantial" consignments of naval hardware.

"Ominous"

The Paris-based International Herald Tribune sees the suicide bombing as a sign of what it calls a "dramatic and ominous shift" in the "method, magnitude and targets of terrorist attacks" in Pakistan.

The French were a convenient and unprotected target

The Times

And the bombing, it says, seems to "highlight recent questions" about how effective Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has really been in his "war on violent Muslim groups".

The attack is "horrifying evidence", says London's The Times, that the war against al-Qaeda in Pakistan "has only just begun".

The French, it maintains, "are not more closely identified in the minds of Islamist zealots with the war in Afghanistan than the Americans or British". But they were, however, a "convenient and unprotected target".

President Musharraf "must hold his nerve, while foreigners hold their breath. There may be more to come," the paper warns.

All the president's men

The tone is new, accessibility is the order of the day, and communication skills are obvious

Le Monde

Back in France, Le Monde views the new government team announced in Paris on Wednesday and concludes that it is a cabinet "geared for combat".

"This team has been put together to defeat the Left" in the upcoming legislative elections, the paper says.

That's why, it adds, the new line-up consists mainly of Chirac "loyalists", all of them "good professional politicians, even though many have no experience in government".

The new Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, "underneath his apparent bonhomie", has "lost no time" in "denouncing what he called his predecessor's five years of inaction", the paper maintains.

Chirac has concocted a skilful cocktail but... the essential fact remains that his loyalists are in charge"

Nouvel Observateur

"The tone is new, accessibility is the order of the day, and communication skills are obvious," it notes. "Now let us wait for the action."

"Jacques Chirac has taken no chances," says the Nouvel Observateur. He has "filled all the key posts with Chirac loyalists".

In addition, the paper says, most of the Right's "bigwigs" have gone - a deliberate move, the paper believes, to "make it difficult for the Left to clamour that 'the dinosaurs are back'".

"Chirac has concocted a skilful cocktail," the paper concludes. But "beneath the apparent opening up, the essential fact remains that his loyalists are in charge".

Victory Day

Russia's Victory Day holiday generates less emotion than it once did

The Independent

Meanwhile, as the main Victory Day celebrations get under way in Russia, London's Independent compares the events in Moscow with those elsewhere in Europe.

Two thousand police were deployed in Vienna, it notes, to prevent clashes between left- and right-wing demonstrators.

By contrast, in Russia, the two-day holiday marking the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945 "generates less emotion than it once did," the paper notes.

And the paper says that, while the holiday "is treated with respect", interest in the Second World War among Russia's younger generations "appears limited".

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