Kiosk newsbites
by Marc Heberden

This month, hot opinions, hot images, and hot gossip are in the French Press.

L’Evénement du Jeudi: Régis Debray. As the cover story points out, he’s a leftist legend, practically an institution. In the ’60s, he was with the Ché and espoused world revolution; ever since he’s been one of France’s most outspoken critics of western capitalism. Always anti-American, Debray’s politics finally caught up with him in Kosovo. In his desire to condemn NATO, he whitewashed Milosovic. Now, he’s come out with a new book, “L’Epreuve,” which castigates the French media as an “insider’s inculturation machine.” L’Evénement du Jeudi not only reviews his proposals, but takes a look at the man himself...

It’s hard to miss this month’s cover of Quo with the hippest politician in France, former Minister of Culture/current Minister of Education and Mayor of Blois, Jack Lang, riffing on a Strat in Keith Richards’ leopard skin jacket. Sympathy for the Devil: Quo takes a look at Power, and the Power of Love.

France’s perpetual Cover Boy, Johnny Hallyday, sulkily stares out from the cover of S: style. The mag also includes an article about Tom Jones. The French are going gaga about this ’60s era pop crooner, who’s career has moved out of the critical ward with the hits “Kiss” and “Sex Bomb.” What’s the key? S: style’s article makes it obvious. Tom Jones, for the French, is an Elvis bis — he was the closest thing the King ever had to a friend, he lived through the legendary mafia-laden epoch of Vegas, has had hundreds of women; and survived. Plus, the French like their stars replete with soap opera lifestyles. Johnny on the cover? Elvis bis? Get it? Got it.

Entrevue talked to Karen Mulder last month. Her publicist apparently has decided to raunch up (a bit) the super model’s squeaky clean/clean cut image. And where better to do it than in a semi-nude photo series in Entrevue? Ever demure, Mulder states in the “interview”: “I’m really not a tease... the first time I posed in underwear I blushed.”

Ici Paris: So, the story goes like this: France’s largest TV station (TF1) was looking for an intelligent and attractive female news anchor to balance their star male anchor PPDA (Patrick Poivre d’Arvor). In comes beautiful, brainy, blond Claire Chazal, who instantly becomes fantasy fodder for several million male news viewers, and helps rocket the Audimat to ever more lofty heights. And what, one might ask, does a paragon of news authority do for an encore? Award-winning reports from Chechnya? Well, no... She’s become the darling of the gossip tabloids. First by having a baby with PPDA, and now by marrying the former programing director of TF1.

This month, Marianne looks at the New Economy and warns that speculation is no way to play with your money. There are so few small investors in France, that their tech market, the “Nouveau Marché” is not behaving the same as the Nasdaq. It’s still largely reactive to what happens overseas. Final analysis: knowing when to hold them or knowing when to fold them, is not yet a Cartesian science in France.