European press review

Europe's press assess the political fallout from the conviction of former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe in a party financing scandal.

A German daily considers Gerhard Schroeder's invitation to the White House.

And Swiss papers celebrate tennis ace Roger Federer's victory in the Australian Open.

Juppe trial

Following Friday's guilty verdict against former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe, France's Le Monde has no doubt about the ruling's wider political implications.

The paper concedes that Juppe was sentenced for his own role in the illegal funding of the RPR party in the 1980s and 1990s.

"But beyond the man," it says, "it is a system that was condemned. A system from which Jacques Chirac - then RPR president and mayor of Paris - benefited."

The paper warns that although the French president will enjoy immunity while he remains in office, he will be open to prosecution as soon as he leaves the Elysee Palace.

It adds that Mr Chirac is, as the paper puts it, "morally responsible" and that Juppe merely carried the can for him.

And after his order on Sunday of an inquiry into break-ins at the judges' offices, the paper voices the hope that spying was not the motive.

France is steadily moving towards a state of permanent disorientation ABC

France's Liberation says this swift response to the judges' complaints is proof of what it calls Mr Chirac's "political flair".

It says the president realised that the Juppe sentence called him into question personally and he needed to counter-attack.

"What better way out of this implication than to cloak himself in his official role as guarantor of the magistrature's independence?" the paper asks.

Spain's ABC describes Juppe's conviction as "a further turn of the screw" in a France in deepening crisis.

"France is steadily moving towards a state of permanent disorientation," the paper warns in its Sunday edition.

Intelligence checks

Austria's Der Standard says the purpose of a US inquiry into intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq would be to counter the idea that there were no good reasons for it.

The paper observes that President George W Bush is reported to have given his backing to such an investigation.

It believes that Mr Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair bear sole political responsibility for the war and the intelligence they used to make their decisions.

"They have not at any time indicated whether or not they weighed up the quality of this information, but this is something an investigation may reveal," it says.

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says Mr Blair is more vulnerable to criticism than Mr Bush.

"Politically you can't help concluding that it was rather bold to justify an existential decision - that of intervening militarily in another country - with secret service findings which don't seem to have been particularly precise," it says.

"This hits British Prime Minister Blair with his high moral standard harder than the Americans," the paper adds.

Hungary's Nepszabadsag questions the motives behind any investigation into US or British intelligence.

It suggests that US and British leaders "need scapegoats" to explain the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"The only outcome they could fear is that the director of the CIA and the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee will not behave like sheep to such an extent as the BBC's leaders did," it says.

US-German ties

Germany's Berliner Zeitung warns against exaggerating the significance of an invitation from President Bush to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Although the Germans are helping in Afghanistan, they also like to use the United Nations as a way of putting obstacles in the path of the US Berliner Zeitung

The paper concedes that the invitation represents a personal success for the chancellor.

It observes that on a scale from zero to four - no meeting, a simple handshake, an invitation to the White House, a meeting in Camp David or a visit to Mr Bush's Texas ranch - Mr Schroeder has just jumped from zero to two.

The paper believes that most members of the US administration still regard the Germans as those who failed to back the US in its hour of need.

"Although the Germans are helping in Afghanistan, they also like to use the United Nations as a way of putting obstacles in the path of the US," it says.

Australian Open

"Federer reaches summit!", reads a headline in the Swiss Tribune De Geneve following the success of Switzerland's Roger Federer at the Australian Open tennis tournament.

The paper points out that the win will make him the world's number one in the ATP rankings.

It says that in the final, which he won against Russia's Marat Safin, he was "quite simply untouchable".

"In Melbourne he was in a class of his own," writes Der Tages-Anzeiger, adding that in his current form Federer seems to be "almost unbeatable".

Le Temps says the tennis champion's performance marks the return of "imagination" to professional tennis.

The paper also describes the fact that Safin reached the final as "good news".

"Contesting the final in Melbourne, the Russian and the man from Basel, two engaging personalities, have perhaps started a legendary rivalry worthy of some glorious predecessors," it concludes.

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