Teddy Riner: From French Olympic judo champion to presidential candidate

PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, November 10: French Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner announces he will run for president in next year's French elections. But how serious is his bid? Also, a new government directive in France says schoolchildren must participate in Remembrance Day commemorations – but the unions are not happy. British comedian Russell Brand is sentenced to 10 years in prison for rape and sexual assault. Finally, we bring you the best of the memes on Nvidia's Jensen Huang.

French Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner has announced he is running in next year's presidential elections in France. The five-time Olympic judo champion made the announcement on social media. He gave an exclusive interview to Aujourd'hui en France - Le Parisien in which he explained that his decision to run has been in the works since the Paris Olympics. He is positioning himself as an alternative to the two likely extremist frontrunners, Marine Le Pen on the far right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the hard left. Le Parisien's editor hails Riner's style, while cautioning that he has a lot to lose with this candidacy – his popularity in France, his sponsors but also his possible bid for the 2028 Olympics in LA. He could also face criticism for his recent tax issues and his reluctance to incite the people of Guadeloupe, the French overseas territory from where he comes, to vaccinate themselves against Covid-19.

From the Olympic flame to "political flame", French sports paper l'Équipe notes that more and more sportsmen and women seem ready to enter politics and give their opinions on issues beyond sports venues. Le Temps notes that President Emmanuel Macron is also to blame – for 10 years, he siphoned away support from the two main political parties, with only the extremists left. In this analysis, Le Temps is sceptical, reminding us that these would-be candidates will need 500 signatures to run and usually what happens is that the candidates have a way of parlaying support for a frontrunner into obtaining a ministerial post. La Charente Libre, a local French paper, says that "with all respect to Riner, his candidacy is above all a symptom of France's political malaise."

For the first time this year, French primary, middle, and high schools will organise a commemoration ceremony for November 11, Armistice Day. But it is proving controversial among teachers' unions, according to the Huffington Post. Schoolchildren will partake in a commemoration ceremony that will become an annual homage to those who died for France – with the aim of transmitting the memory of history and peace to younger generations. Unions have criticised the move, saying it could favour military culture in school and be used politically. Historians and teachers debate the issue in La Croix, the Catholic paper. Those in favour says it will transmit the memory of history, while those against say that students already study the First and Second World Wars and thus participation in the commemoration service is redundant.

Turning to the UK, comedian Russell Brand will spend a decade behind bars after being found guilty of rape and sexual assault. Brand was a career chameleon: a stand-up comic, MTV host, political analyst and, lately, conspiracy theorist. In a high-profile trial, six women testified against him over the past month. He has now been sentenced to over 10 years in prison – vindication for some British dailies like Metro. His face is splashed across the dailies, including Daily Mirror, Daily Express and the Guardian. In its analysis, Le Monde says that Russell Brand's conviction is unlikely to have the stratospheric consequences of that of Harvey Weinstein, but that the cases share one thing in common: a culture of silence broken by the press and a wave of accusations that shattered the denials long maintained by two prominent figures who were eventually brought to justice.

Finally, Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia who confessed to having an affair with a rumoured Chinese spy, is the butt of all jokes on the Internet. His extramarital affair confession took everyone by surprise and briefly send Nvidia stocks tumbling, especially as rumours of a possible Chinese honeytrap abounded. The illustrated press has been merciless. We look at Morten Morland and Patrick Blower from the Times and Telegraph respectively. Morten Morland sees the Nvidia CEO as a "Nvidiot". He is also mocked in online memes gathered by Buzzfeed.

You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.