PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, March 24, 2026: First, French papers are dedicating their front pages to former prime minister Lionel Jospin, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 88. Next, Italian front pages discuss the results of Monday’s failed referendum. Also, the Financial Times looks into the misuse of public funds in Hungary. Finally, not all climate news is bad news.
Most French front pages are remembering former Socialist premier Lionel Jospinwho passed away on Sunday at the age of 88. Liberation remembers him as the incarnation of seriousness in politics and a bastion of the French left. In Switzerland, Time calls him a figure of the “all-powerful Socialist Party“.
In Italy, a judicial reform referendum did not go Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s way, as almost 54 percent of voters rejected the proposal. Opposition paper The Republic headlines with a great big “No”! The Daily Fact headlines with “Italy wakes up”. Tomorrow, meanwhile, headlines with “an Italian miracle” and says the result puts an end to “Meloni’s illusion of invincibility”. On the right, Libero regrets the “survival of an ailing system”. The Truth decries one of the “most misleading referendum campaigns in history”.
Things are heating up in Hungary in the run-up to April 12 elections, where Viktor Orban‘s future hangs in the balance. The Financial Times investigates 13 of Orban’s associates and how they have fraudulently obtained huge government contracts since he came to power in 2010. According to The Wall Street Journalcorruption investigations are the least of Orban’s worries, as the premier battles with voter discontent and economic problems.
Finally, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization has released its latest “State of the Climate” report. CNN notes that people have become almost blind to bad climate news. It’s not all bad news, though: a one-eyed dog in Northern Ireland has become a conservation hero, as the BBC reports.
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