Published on: 10/11/2026 - 08:09
On the front page of the press, this Tuesday, November 10, the more than mixed reactions, in France, to the announcement of the revaluation of the SMIC, the minimum wage. The perplexity of part of the press at the candidacy of five-time Olympic judo medalist Teddy Riner for the 2027 presidential election. And a new statue of Trump (or rather of his big toe).
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On the front page of the press, reactions in France to the announcement of the increase in the SMIC, the minimum wage.
Both under pressure from demonstrators, and without much financial margin, the government announces a boost of 0.6%... which seems to satisfy no one. On the right, L'Opinion criticizes a "coup of pressure on businesses", with a drawing by Kak showing Sébastien Lecornu plugging French gaps with banknotes. The Prime Minister, accused by Le Figaro, of taking business leaders for “the eternal turkeys of farce”. Discontent on the right, discontent on the left, where Libération criticizes "the government's minimum effort", while L'Humanité protests against the "tip" left by Sébastien Lecornu at the end of a "social conference" compared to "the yellow coin operation", the campaign to finance hospitals through the collection of cents. If the announcement is considered insufficient by all the unions, they are however divided on the follow-up to be given to the movement, according to the Mediapart info site.
Social anger, to which judoka Teddy Riner promises to respond by running for president. In an interview with Le Parisien/Aujourd’hui en France, the five-time Olympic champion justifies his candidacy by his “anxiety” in the face of “the turn” that France would take, which he claims to defend against “extremes”. The newspaper, for its part, salutes the “panache” of Teddy Riner, who would have “a lot to lose” with this candidacy, as proven by “the reproaches about his tax adjustment recently confirmed by the courts” or even the criticisms about “his reluctance to encourage the inhabitants of Guadeloupe, where he comes from, to be vaccinated against Covid”. “From the Olympic flame to the political flame”: L’Equipe observes that “more and more athletes seem ready to get involved, to give their opinion on subjects far removed from stadiums, gymnasiums or swimming pools” – opinions “from all political sides from the extreme right to the extreme left, which please or do not like but which remind us, according to the newspaper, that we live in a democracy”. In any case certainly at a time when everyone has an opinion on everything, and especially an opinion. Teddy Riner assures that he is “neither right nor left”. HuffPost associates the formula not with the National Front, the ancestor of the RN, of which this was the slogan, but with Macronism. The site cites the athlete's past declarations on the "35-hour straightjacket", the "administrative heaviness" or even the weight of the burden on employers and also notes the presence, in the judoka's entourage, of personalities like Philippe Véran, a former LR elected official and wealthy entrepreneur, who was one of the linchpins of Emmanuel Macron's campaign in 2017 and who has invested heavily in the public debate in recent years "to blow things up in the media the Zucman tax” on the taxation of the wealth of the ultra-rich.
Teddy Riner's candidacy divides the press. Provence, which believes that he lacked "neither the style nor the convictions to defend the reasons for his commitment", vilifies the supposed "laughter in the Parisian salons at the end of this announcement, tinged with the contempt of who knows how to launch an attack" on the presidential election. La Charente Libre, which takes the precaution of specifying that it has “no intention of disrespecting Teddy Riner” judges, for its part, that his candidacy is above all the “symptom” of “political unease”. 34, 35 or 36 candidates: five months before the first round, Paris Normandie notes that Teddy Riner is joining “a race already saturated with candidates and egos”. For Le Temps, Teddy Riner is the “latest in a long list of “unusual” candidates often inserting themselves into the political space of the center”, “left free by the polarization of the campaign”, according to the Swiss daily, which evokes the “field of ruins left by macronism”. “By siphoning off the major parties of the past,” accuses the newspaper, Emmanuel Macron “will have left room only for the most radical and his legacy being impossible to assume, a very large third of the landscape is up for auction and the queue of buyers grows longer every week.”
We end this press review in the United States, where Donald Trump inspired a new statue on the eve of Veterans Day. The Los Angeles Times reports that a golden statue has appeared on Washington's National Mall depicting the president rubbing his bare foot, to mock the bone growth diagnosis that allowed him to be exempt from military service during the Vietnam War. According to the newspaper, this statue and the presence of an artist disguised as a toe are the work of Secret Handshake, a group of anonymous artists opposed to the American president, who dedicated to the president this legend engraved on the pedestal: “We salute a leader who knows that the word “sacrifice” is inseparable from individual sacrifice. A warrior who reminds us that sometimes, when we are called to stand, it is better to sit down and rest.
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