European press review

The Vatican's document condemning same sex marriages comes in for criticism in today's European newspapers.

Unemployment in France and a controversial road toll in Germany also attract comment.

A Hungarian paper laments the state of the country's health service.

And one Moscow daily focuses its attention on unearthing the details of President Putin's past.

Anti-gay marriage stance

Let us not beat about the bush: this Catholic Church is a hopeless case Der Standard

Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung describes a document on gay marriage published yesterday by the Vatican as "a sharp anti-homosexual text".

The paper believes the strongly-worded document illustrates "the faulty reasoning of the Vatican with regard to the issue of homosexuality".

Austria's Der Standard dismisses the Vatican's stance as something "like a message from times long gone-by".

"Let us not beat about the bush: this Catholic Church is a hopeless case," the paper says.

French jobless

Several French papers are disappointed with the country's latest unemployment figures - which rose by 1.1% in June.

"And the future does not look too rosy either," says Le Figaro, pointing out that the national statistics office expects the number of jobless to rise from 9.5 to 9.8% by the year's end.

Le Monde is equally pessimistic and expects rising unemployment to be "the big issue" on the return from the summer break.

As the paper sees it, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's cabinet "seems at a loss over what to do and is governing by guesswork".

Heavy toll

In Germany, the press blames Transport Minister Manfred Stolpe for the delay to the introduction of a toll for heavy vehicles.

"Obviously this forward-looking project is too big for the minister and his team to cope with," writes Die Welt.

The Berliner Zeitung describes the postponement by two months of the controversial plan as a "huge embarrassment" for the minister.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung believes Mr Stolpe was wrong to ignore technical difficulties as well as "unmistakable warnings from Brussels" over the legality of the project.

"Stolpe has not only made a fool of himself but of Europe's biggest transit country, which obviously doesn't know what it is doing," it says.

Poor health

At least in Hungary we don't have to wait for months or years for an operation, as the British and Dutch must Nepszabadsag

The state of Hungary's health service comes under fire in Budapest's Nepszabadsag.

The paper tells the story of the doctor in a provincial hospital who placed a newspaper advert asking the public to send rubber gloves and paper towels to his ward.

But the paper then compares the situation in Hungary to EU countries and concludes that maybe things are not so bad after all.

"At least in Hungary we don't have to wait for months or years for an operation, as the British and Dutch must," it says.

Nuclear saint

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin's visit to the closed city of Sarov receives wide coverage in the country's press.

Most papers highlight the city's unusual double history. It is not only the birthplace of one of Russia's most revered saints, St Serafim, but also the heart of the former Soviet Union's nuclear weapons programme.

"Everything became mixed up in Nizhniy Novgorod Region: the state and the church that is formally separated from it, religious dogmas and the principles of nuclear physics," says Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Komsomolskaya Pravda believes that the Russian president's participation in an Orthodox pilgrimage is a "question of politics".

The paper likens the elaborate ceremonies marking the 100 year anniversary of the canonisation of St Seraphim to the reburial of the last Russian Tsar in St Petersburg in 1998.

"The events in St Petersburg marked the re-establishment of the state succession. In Sarov it is a question of re-establishing the spiritual succession."

'Ordinary lad'

He would answer back to teachers, behave like a hooligan, get into fights School friend on Russian President Putin

The popular daily, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, is less interested in events in Sarov and concentrates on investigating the Russian president's past.

The paper interviewed people in St Petersburg who knew Mr Putin 30 or 40 years ago, "when he was an ordinary lad from an ordinary working class family".

One school friend tells the paper that the young Vladimir was far from a model pupil.

"In breaks he ran about the corridors. He would answer back to teachers, behave like a hooligan, get into fights. Not surprisingly, the future head of state was not even accepted into the Pioneers for a long time."

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