Weekly brief

A little more than a week before the first-round presidential elections set for April 22, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s hopes of upsetting Socialist contender François Hollande seem diminished. Though support for the president has grown in polls after months of trailing Hollande, three polls released on Tuesday, April 10, predicted that Sarkozy would take the first round by 0.5 percent of votes, a slighter margin than reported last week, before losing by nearly ten percentage points in the May 6 runoff,  Reuters reported. The influence of outside contenders has also come into question, as an IPSOS poll released on Tuesday, April 3, showed Leftist Party candidate Jean-Luc Mélénchon surpassing far-right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen as the first-round third place. Mélénchon has used nostalgia for France’s communist past to nearly double his showings in the past month, as covered by le Nouvel Observateur and the Economist.

Questions pertaining to Islam are returning to center stage in debate leading up to France’s April 22 first-round presidential election, as about 30 suspected Muslim radicals were arrested, and more deported from France, following the series of shootings in and around Toulouse that left seven dead last month, as covered by the Guardian, the AP and the New York Times. French officials said they were deporting five Islamist militants on Monday, April 2, before arresting at least ten more on Wednesday, April 4, according to Reuters and le Monde.  

As Wednesday, April 11, marked the one-year anniversary of a ban on the integral Islamic veil taking effect, reports indicated that about 300 fines have been issues under the controversial law and 354 women have been called in for questioning, le Monde and la Libération reported. The law, however, seems to have little dissuaded women from donning the burqa and the niqab, as officials have reported seeing little growth or decline in the number of women sporting the full-body Islamic veils, according to the Toronto Star. 

The Bank of France released figures on Tuesday, April 10, showing that France’s economy had stalled in the first quarter of this year after avoiding an official recession by growing 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, Reuters reported. The report also showed that the business sentiment indicator for March remained at 95 after reaching the three-month low in February, according to the International Business Tribune.

The Bank of Spain announced on Tuesday, April 10, that Spanish banks would require more capital to address a series of loan defaults, adding pressure to the nation’s already questionable economy, Reuters reported. The announcement came as Spain issued 10-year bonds at a yield 19 basis points higher than the last sale at 5.93 percent.  This came as the yield on German bonds fell to 1.64 percent, meaning the gap between the two European bonds grew from 3.87 to 4.28 percentage points over the long Easter weekend, according to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Concerns over Spain’s economy drove down markets across Europe.  The CAC 40 dropped more than 3 percent to its lowest level since mid January, while Frankfurt and London saw drops of more than 2 percent on Tuesday, April 10, le Monde reported. 

China released trade figures on Monday, April 9, revealing a surprising trade surplus of $5.35 billion for the month of March, far exceeding projections of the expected deficit of more than $3 billion and after reporting a deficit of $31.5 billion in February, Bloomberg and Boursier. While the figures looked promising, Chinese officials and analysts alike seemed cautious, as the surplus was partially explain by a considerable decrease in imports for the world’s second largest economy, according to the Wall Street Journal and les Echos.

Social media giant Facebook announced on Tuesday, April 10, that it had reached a deal worth nearly $1 billion to purchase media player Instagram, making the largest purchase for Facebook a month before its Initial Public Offering is highly anticipated, the New York Times and l’Express reported. La Tribune and the Washington Post explored Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to purchase, for such a considerable sum, a start-up with only 13 employees, but the social-media competitor has acquired nearly 30 million users since it launched 18 months ago.

Germany released figures on Tuesday, April 10, showing that the nation’s exports rose for a second month in February, growing 1.6 percent after a 3.4 percent hike from December to January.  This increase was offset, though, by a 3.9-percent increase in imports which drove the trade surplus for Europe’s top economy down from €15.1 billion in January to €13. 6 billion in February, TF1 and the Washington Post reported. The unexpected growth was in explained primarily by an increase in exports to nations outside the EuroZone, according to BBC and NASDAQ.