PRESS REVIEW – Friday, October 16: French papers look ahead to Saturday's call for mass protests, which will bring together a number of social movements. Next, climate change has devastating consequences on communities in Afghanistan. Also, Libération publishes a special edition written in the style of Georges Perec. Finally, this year's animal of the year has been named.
Protests are planned across France for Saturday, October 17. L'Humanité headlines with "Crossroads of anger" and features a photo of the Yellow Vests on its front page. Le Parisien's front page shows Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez meeting with seven young people. They discussed police behaviour during the student protests, and the meeting was organised in the hope of creating dialogue after three weeks of protests. Le Figaro has a double-page spread on the student movement. It says that a police union has filed a complaint against the French state for "endangering the lives of others", meaning those of the police officers. Meanwhile, left-leaning news site Mediapart says that while most of the French media is focusing on violence, the student protests are also a place where joy and partying are political acts. The European Correspondent says four broken promises are fuelling youth-led movements across Europe.
Climate change features on a number of front pages this morning. La Croix talks about a planet on high alert in the face of a hyper-charged El Niño. The Guardian reports that six areas of England have been declared in severe drought as reservoirs run low. Beyond the UK, droughts like these can have drastic consequences. The Guardian also features a special report on Afghanistan, where families are being forced to sell girls as brides in order to survive.
Elsewhere, French daily Libération is famous for its plays on words, but so is the late author and artist Georges Perec, who wrote an entire novel without the letter E called "La Disparition", which Libé references on its front page. This is not just an edition about Perec but in his style, and he has turned the paper on its head, quite literally. Some pages are half upside down, and an article on the Houthis is written in tumbling columns. Quite topically, the paper features an investigation into the mysterious disappearance of the letter U in Pau, in southwestern France.
Finally, the animal of the year for 2026 has been named by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The award goes to Sgiath, a working dog in the Scottish Highlands who has helped hunt down an invasive marine species called the carpet sea squirt, nicknamed "sea vomit".
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