European press review

In the French press the arrest of farmers' leader Jose Bove provokes strong reactions and a Norwegian newspaper welcomes the nine-month ban on certain discharges from the UK's Sellafield plant as a "half-victory".

Elsewhere, East German engineering workers are taken to task for going on strike over working hours.

Miscreant or martyr?

Amid protests in France over Sunday's arrest of Jose Bove - farmers' union leader and anti-globalisation icon - the dailies take opposing stances on the issue.

There is no real freedom without responsibility

Le Figaro

Le Monde says Bove's crime of destroying GM crops was a collective and symbolic one.

"He acted in the service of a cause that can be debated but in no way refuted: the defence of a healthy environment, the freedom of farmers to use their own seed, the protection of life against commercial exploitation," the paper says.

The paper argues that the arrest was clumsy.

"The government is responding to provocation with provocation, at the risk of turning Jose Bove into a martyr for his cause."

Le Figaro, on the other hand, voices mocking contempt for Bove's supporters on the Left.

"The country is resounding with the angry cries of the official guardians of universal conscience," the paper scoffs.

It says Bove's removal from his farm by helicopter was swift and non-violent and rejects accusations of a political attack on union power.

After 'it is forbidden to forbid', the panacea is thus becoming 'tolerance is intolerable'

Liberation

"In a law-based state, each individual must accept the consequences of his actions," the paper insists.

But it wonders if the best option is still not for President Jacques Chirac to pardon this latter-day Asterix - as his supporters demand - and thus defuse the crisis.

"In that event, Jose Bove's short but just incarceration will at least have had the virtue of reminding people that there is no real freedom without responsibility."

France's Liberation interprets the treatment of Jose Bove as an example of a wider drift towards authoritarianism in the government.

According to the paper, the field of "zero tolerance" is being widened from petty crime to public sector strikes, illegal immigration and the wearing of Muslim headscarves in schools.

It also sees "the end of tolerance" for Bove, who, as the paper puts it, "was taken to prison like an underworld boss".

The paper believes that the government intends to roll back what it sees as "the thinking of 1968".

"After 'it is forbidden to forbid', the panacea is thus becoming 'tolerance is intolerable'," it says.

Semi-victory on Sellafield

Norway's Aftenposten welcomes the news that the British government has asked British Nuclear Fuels to stop discharges of Technetium-99 from the Sellafield plant in Cumbria for nine months as "a half victory".

Now it's all about keeping up the pressure until the British realise that the ban on discharges must become permanent

Aftenposten

"The announcement by the British environment minister of a temporary suspension... shows that it is worthwhile imposing strong and lasting political pressure on stubborn authorities," the paper says.

"For a long time changing governments and the authorities in several other countries as well as a number of environmental organizations have pointed out how unacceptable it was that the British knowingly and willingly polluted the North Sea with radioactivity. They have finally recorded a half-victory."

The paper says Norwegian Environment Minister Boerge Brende and the country's Bellona environmental foundation can take a lot of the credit for the moratorium.

"Now it's all about keeping up the pressure until the British realise that the ban on discharges must become permanent. Only then will the half victory become total."

German strikes

Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung examines the strike in the engineering industry in East Germany, where thousands of workers have walked out in support of a 35-hour week to bring them into line with West Germany.

The experiment for a 35-hour week must be halted - and if this recognition grows out of the strike in East Germany, then at least something good has come out of it

Sueddeutsche Zeitung

"The trade union leadership seems to have taken leave of its senses," the paper says. The 35-hour week has brought no benefits and "Germans should in fact be working longer hours, not fewer," the paper argues.

"Germany has the shortest working hours and the lowest growth rates in the EU, employment figures are worsening all the time in comparison with other countries and jobless figures will reach the five-million mark next winter."

The trend towards more leisure time and less growth which started in the 1980s was a mistake, the paper says.

"The experiment for a 35-hour week must be halted. And if this recognition grows out of the strike in East Germany, then at least something good has come out of it."

Die Welt believes that the strike is not so much about the 35-hour week but about who wields the power in the country.

Just as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher "squared up to the haughty miners' union leader Arthur Scargill", so German employers must hold their ground and refuse to return to the negotiating table, the paper says.

For Britain, the failure of the miners' strike was a turning point and "perhaps Germany has reached a similar point".

The "small group of backward-looking and obstinate" union leaders "must recognize that the times of futile and arrogant actions are over once and for all".

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