European press review

In Wednesday's European press, France's neighbours reflect from a distance on its labour law protests, while Belarus shivers at the prospect of a huge gas price rise.

A Swedish paper cries foul over a World Cup boycott call, and in Siberia, the ice man cometh.

French protests

Tuesday's fifth day of national protest in France against a youth labour law draws comment from several of its neighbours.

Switzerland's Le Temps says French trade unions have been "reinvigorated" by the crisis.

By their solid opposition to the law, which makes it easier for employers to fire young workers, the trade unions "are hoping to stem a long decline", the paper says.

Another Swiss daily, the Tribune De Geneve, says yesterday's day of action has achieved the objectives set out by the organisers.

"The balance of power is now such that it leaves hardly any room for negotiation," the paper feels, because the trade unions will not accept any proposal short of the repeal of the law.

However, the paper warns, this would only perpetuate the problem of high youth unemployment.

Assessing the wider impact of the protests on French politics, Germany's Der Tagesspiegel says President Jacques Chirac has dealt a blow to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's chances of the presidency in 2007.

"The French president has developed a not-exactly-laudable talent to survive crises partly of his own making," the paper says.

Nothing is hated more in France than liberalism, otherwise known as 'the Anglo-Saxon model' Romania Libera

Mr Chirac, it recalls, had argued for the tough version of the proposed CPE law, but then went on television calling for those aspects of the law that had triggered the street protests to be removed.

In doing so, the paper says, he "embarrassed his prime minister".

"On the other hand, Nicolas Sarkozy, whom Chirac dislikes, has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and is offering himself to all sides as a mediator," it says.

In Bucharest, Romania's Romania Libera believes the roots of the crisis lie deep in the French national psyche.

"France is the only country in the world to have experimented with the systematic rejection of liberalism for decades," the paper contends.

"Nothing is hated more in France than liberalism, otherwise known as 'the Anglo-Saxon model', or 'globalisation', or 'cultural imperialism'," it says, arguing that capitalism has gained a bad name in France, even though it has made France the fifth richest country in the world.

"The notion that 'the Americans are to blame' and that the solemn task of the French state is to protect French citizens from the uncertainty of the Anglo-Saxon model is showing its consequences now," the paper says.

The French economy is in a much better state than is suggested by the unemployment rate or the level of popular discontent, the paper argues, and social protection is at least on a par with the social-democratic Scandinavian states, if not higher.

"There seems to be no reason for the discontent," the paper muses. "The reason for this French unhappiness is cultural."

Belarus gas price

Tuesday's call by the deputy head of Russia's Gazprom gas giant to triple the price Russia charges Belarus for its gas is sending shivers down Belarusian spines, according to Russia's Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.

The government paper says its office in the Belarussian capital Minsk was deluged by angry phone calls protesting that the move would amount to "a national disaster" for Belarus.

The paper notes that current low price gas supplies are the mainstay of economic growth in Belarus.

"Yet it is even more than that," the paper comments. "Cheap gas means social and political stability. When all is said and done, this was the driving force behind President Alexander Lukashenko's election victory."

Nonetheless, it believes, the Belarussian authorities will soon be "waving goodbye to gas socialism".

Russia's Novyye Izvestiya sees the Gazprom move as the opening gambit of a longer-term strategy.

It quotes "a source close to the gas talks" as describing the step as "blackmail" aimed at paving the way for Moscow to gain control of the Belarusian pipeline operator Beltransgaz, which transports Russia's gas to the more lucrative Western markets.

The Gazeta newspaper shares this analysis.

"Gazprom has decided to begin its campaign to acquire the Belarussian gas transport system a good nine months before the new gas price for Belarus takes effect," it says.

World Cup sex trade under fire

This week's call by Sweden's equal opportunities ombudsman for Sweden to pull out of this summer's World Cup football tournament in protest against the prostitution he says it will encourage is "a shot way over the bar", according to Sweden's Expressen.

"It is deplorable and deeply shocking that major sports events promote the sex trade and have traffickers rubbing their hands," the daily concedes, "but the answer is not to start boycotting future Olympic Games and World Cups."

However, the paper suggests, "it would go a long way if politicians, opinion formers, and in this case the sports world took responsibility and manifested their disgust at this modern form of slave trade".

The paper speaks of "a glaring shortage of men" who dare to speak out publicly against the sex trade, and throws down the gauntlet to the Swedish national squad.

"How about some of our high-profile footballers taking the opportunity during the World Cup to explain that real men don't buy women for sex?"

Go with the floe

A number of Russian newspapers report what Novyye Izvestiya describes as the "somewhat bizarre" story of two round-the-world explorers - one of them a Briton - who, the paper says, "violated Russia's state borders under mysterious circumstances".

The two, who have been walking across shifting plates of ice in the Bering Strait between North America and Russia, were detained after apparently taking "the wrong ice floe", the paper says.

Izvestiya finds the case equally perplexing.

"The two said their destination was Foggy Albion, and they were intending to get there on foot," the paper reports incredulously.

"Enquiries are now under way to check the sincerity of their intentions."

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