This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 001430 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPT FOR INR/R/MR; IIP/RW; IIP/RNY; BBG/VOA; IIP/WEU; AF/PA; 
EUR/WE /P/SP; D/C (MCCOO); EUR/PA; INR/P; INR/EUC; PM; OSC ISA 
FOR ILN; NEA; WHITE HOUSE FOR NSC/WEUROPE; DOC FOR ITA/EUR/FR 
AND PASS USTR/PA; USINCEUR FOR PAO; NATO/PA; MOSCOW/PA; 
ROME/PA; USVIENNA FOR USDEL OSCE. 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR FR
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION REPORT - Iran GWOT - Moussaoui Trial - 
Guantanamo 
PARIS - Tuesday, March 07, 2006 
 
 
(A) SUBJECTS COVERED IN TODAY'S REPORT: 
 
Iran 
GWOT - Moussaoui Trial - Guantanamo 
 
B) SUMMARY OF COVERAGE: 
 
Without exception all front pages and a good share of today's 
editorials are devoted to the day of protest against PM 
Villepin's employment contract plan for youth (CPE). While Le 
Figaro acknowledges that the government is expecting strong 
pressures to be coming from today's demonstrations, the 
economic press warns that businesses and human resource 
executives are lukewarm about the Villepin plan. The left- 
leaning press is critical, with Liberation headlining "The 
Kleenex Generation" and communist l'Humanite saying: "We Do 
Not Want the CPE, But We Have (Other) Ideas." 
 
Iran is a major international story: "Washington Qualifies 
Iran's Nuclear Program as a `Global Threat'" is Le Monde's 
headline, which quotes John Bolton: "If Iran pursues its 
program, it will be exposing itself to concrete and painful 
consequences." Iran's reform movement President, Maryam 
Radjavi comments also in Le Monde: "The last 18 years of 
concealment and three years of negotiations since the Iranian 
nuclear program was set in motion have put the world and the 
Iranian nation in danger. The Mullahs have pushed the entire 
region to the edge of an abyss."  In Le Figaro editorialist 
Luc de Barochez pens an op-ed entitled "Iran's Nuclear 
Program: Why We Need to Be Pessimistic." (See Part C) 
 
The Moussaoui trial makes the front page of Le Monde, "Between 
the Death Penalty and Life in Prison" and elicits a number of 
reports (See Part C) including in Liberation which devotes a 
full-page report to the 317 interrogations of Guantanamo 
prisoners made public by the Pentagon: "Four years after the 
detention camp opened, the Pentagon was forced by the U.S. 
press to publish the reports of some 317 detainee 
interrogations. but far short of the 760 suspects who have 
spent time in Guantanamo." Liberation quotes extensively from 
the prisoners' testimony, characterizes the detentions as 
"abusive" as it points to "weak proof" and generally calls the 
system "Kafkaesque." La Croix carries an op-ed entitled 
"Torture, the Poison of Democracies." (See Part C) 
 
Le Monde's wrap-up report of President Bush's trip to India, 
Afghanistan and Pakistan concludes: "President Bush's first 
trip to South Asia underscores the transformation of American 
diplomacy in the region over the last few years. India, 
America's `natural ally' has been promoted to the rank of 
strategic partner. Pakistan, and especially its president. 
will have to make do with a good grade for its commitment to 
the war on terror and Bush's guarded support for the country's 
democratization. Far from reinforcing Musharraf's position, 
which is already isolated on the international scene, Mr. 
Bush's visit has further weakened him." 
 
Le Figaro announces on its front page: "France's New Doctrine 
to Fight Terrorism." France's White Book on terrorism will be 
approved today by the Prime Minister and seven of his 
ministers, setting the scene for the new threat level to 
France and the improvements required to fight terrorism. Le 
Figaro notes that one of the measures includes informing the 
public, including through the recently implemented database on 
terrorist acts perpetrated in France. Another area of 
investigation is education, Islamism and proselytism in 
schools. 
 
Popular right-of-center Le Parisien interviews Bernard-Henri 
Levy, the author of a book on America entitled "American 
Vertigo." "It's never right to hate a country and even less 
its people. You can hate a government; you can fight George 
Bush, and that's my case. But, when you hate America in and of 
itself, the worse is never far away: notably the hatred of 
democracy. The dominate impression is that. democracy is alive 
and well.  Despite this pitiable administration, the 
citizenship model is functioning. The manner in which they 
manage immigration, their ethnic minorities, the way they are 
able to overcome their factionalism and to build a model of 
national integration is something wonderful. I would like 
Clichy. St Denis. to take inspiration from this and to feel 
fully patriotic, proud of their flag, of their Constitution, 
without denying their Arab origins." 
 
(C) SUPPORTING TEXT/BLOCK QUOTES: 
 
Iran 
 
"Iran's Nuclear Program: Why We Need to Be Pessimistic" 
Luc de Barochez in right-of-center Le Figaro (03/07): "Nothing 
and no one has been able to convince Iran to stop a nuclear 
program which clearly has military implications. Experts are 
convinced that Iran can develop the bomb within three to ten 
years. But how can the U.S., France and Great Britain stop 
Iran? Tehran is in a position of strength. Any crisis that 
might involve Iran turns immediately into an oil crisis. The 
Iranians know it and take advantage of it. In addition, 
regional crises have played into their hands: their major 
enemies, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein have been eliminated 
by the Americans! The EU-3 attempts to resolve the crisis 
through diplomacy were all the more courageous because the 
U.S. was not part of the effort. When traditional diplomacy 
fails, there are the sanctions. But the consequences of such 
measures have yet to be addressed: the impact of an oil crisis 
on the international community and the yet-to-be built 
consensus with China and Russia in order to make the sanctions 
stick. Secretary Rice's recent visit to the Gulf region showed 
that the Arab monarchies themselves have a hard time 
understanding why there is a problem with an Iranian bomb and 
no problem with an Israeli bomb. A military intervention in 
Iran carries enormous risks. In the end, the international 
community has nothing but poor choices to choose from. The 
next two years will be crucial: waiting for the U.S. 
presidential election and a hypothetical revision of America's 
foreign policy means wasting precious time." 
 
GWOT - Moussaoui Trial - Guantanamo 
 
"Moussaoui and the American Judge" 
Philippe Gelie in right-of-center Le Figaro (03/07): "Judge 
Leonie Brinkema is in the last stretch of what will probably 
be one of the most delicate affairs of her career. The case of 
Moussaoui, the only individual standing trial for 9/11, is 
eliciting wide political and media interest. The legal tug-of- 
war pitting her against Moussaoui is of a special nature in 
view of Moussaoui's outbursts about Islamism and his 
incoherent strategy of defense. But despite the ambient 
tension, Judge Brinkema has never lost sight of the need for a 
fair trial. She has tried her best to put together an 
impartial jury. Because the death penalty is at stake, she 
prefers having a jury made up of people who have their doubts 
about capital punishment. Even if Virginia is a state that 
favors the death penalty, Brinkema's court has never called 
for this verdict." 
 
"Torture, the Poison of Democracies" 
Pierre Servent in Catholic La Croix (03/07): "If we want to 
understand why a great and friendly democracy like the U.S. 
gave into practices such as those depicted in the Abu Ghraib 
photos, if we want to go beyond comfortable moral posturing, 
we must touch upon those phenomena which lead democracies to 
make a pact with the devil in the name of their fight for 
`good.' 9/11 and the movement of solidarity that followed 
around the world, as well as the feeling in America of no 
longer being invulnerable led to the temptation of accepting 
all in the name of punishment for the guilty. This 
psychological pitfall is dangerous because it tends to 
demonize the other, whether he is truly guilty or simply 
embodies one's fantasy of the guilty. Hence the debate in the 
U.S. press about the use of torture since 9/11. The brutality 
of the initial trauma explains how practically an entire 
nation - the elites and the media - jumped on the bandwagon of 
the war against Iraq, a country which in fact had nothing 
whatsoever to do with 9/11. From then on this rhetoric began 
to have a life of its own, mistreating democratic values in 
the name of effectiveness. and leading to exceptional laws 
like the Patriot Act. While the point is not to adopt a stance 
of angelism towards Al-Qaeda, which knows how to use our 
values as leverage against ourselves, we must be extremely 
rigorous when it comes to our principles: when we ignore them 
we give fuel to the terrorists. This is when poison starts to 
drip through the veins of democracies. When virtuous regimes 
give in to torture, they suffer a double defeat, ethical and 
military." STAPLETON