A weekly round-up of leading journals

The three leading candidates for the French presidency cut such interesting political profiles that The Economist, in its cover leader (‘France’s chance’, April 12), wends exceptionally long through each’s attributes before settling for the centre-right Nicolas Sarkozy, over centrist Francois Bayrou and Socialist Segolene Royal. “After a quarter-century of drift (he) offers the best hope of reform,” it decides in advance of the first round of polling on April 22. The election matters, it says, because France is “the Euro zone’s second biggest member and home to ten of Europe’s ten biggest countries”. It is also the slowest growing big economy in Europe, with an unwieldy state presence and growing ethnic tensions in its suburbs. Sarkozy is recommended because he is quick to admit that France needs radical change, especially in labour markets and pension. Plus, he actually likes America and is admiring of Tony Blair’s third way. But on two issues he still appears reticent to change: meddlesome industrial policy and suspicion of immigrants. In any case, notes Economist, the first hurdle for this pack is to keep Jean-Marie Le Pen out of the second round.

The New Yorker (April 16) carries another essay by Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (‘My first passport: what it means to belong to a country’). And on its Financial Page, James Surowiecki takes stock of the India story (‘India’s skills famine’). Why this talk of skills shortage, he asks, in a country that produces 2.5 million college graduates and 400,000 engineers each year? It could be the quality of most of those degrees, he answers, by referring to new studies. Two conclusions follow. One, the old theory held by many economists that post-secondary education did not much impact growth has been overturned: “The social rate of return on investment in university education in India has been calculated at an impressive 9 or 10 per cent. Yet India spends roughly 3.5 per cent of its GDP on education, significantly below the percentage spent by the US, even though India’s population is much younger, and spending on education should be proportionately higher.”

Two, it reflects the changes in India since the seventies, when India was considered to be overeducated: “It seemed to be a country with too many engineers and PhDs working as clerks in government offices. Once the Indian business climate loosened up, though, that meant companies could tap a backlog of hundreds of thousands of eager, skilled workers.” But the education system actually slid backward, and Surowiecki points out that between 1985 and 1997 the number of teachers in the country actually fell. He concludes: “Education will be all the more important for India’s well-being; the earlier generation of so-called Asian Tigers depended heavily on manufacturing, but India’s focus on services and technology will require a more skilled and educated workforce.”

Meanwhile: ‘Who won in Iraq?’ asks Foreign Policy in its March/April issue. These ten: Iran, Moqtada al-Sadr, Al-Qaeda, Samuel Huntington, China, Arab dictators, the price of oil, the United Nations, Old Europe, and Israel. Newsweek (April 16) looks at ‘Leadership and the environment’, and takes stock most prominently of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s green initiatives. Time (April 23) examines ‘Why America’s army is at the breaking point’ (because of, in short, “reduced training, shorter breaks and disintegrating equipment). BusinessWeek (April 23, ‘Not so fast’) explains “how the threat of litigation is making companies skittish about axing problem workers”. Vanity Fair too sends forth its ‘Green issue’ (May).