"Morality and politics, new requirements," headlines La Croix, which argues that the charges for attempted rape leveled against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former socialist party front-runner for the 2012 presidential elections, raise issues about the ethical criteria of the political class. This affair "poses the question of the quest for coherence between public and private life,” notes the Catholic daily. "From now on, it will be difficult for those who dream of high office to lay claim to it without displaying a greater modesty, a surer sense of equilibrium in both their projects and their behaviour." With regard to "a phenomenon which is not restricted to France,” La Croix points out that “blind populism, on the increase in Europe and elsewhere, feeds on dwindling confidence in the day-to-day behaviour of political elites. And virtue, a word that has gone out of fashion, could become the new pre-requisite" for political office.
The leader of Greece’s leftist alliance SYRIZA is the new bright hope of Greek politics. Steering a course between pragmatism and the rhetoric of class warfare, he has unsettled Berlin, and not just those who back Angela Merkel's austerity policies. 
Europe’s economic woes have forced us to try to understand the secret Olympian world of global finance. But now that we pay more attention to bond yields and stability mechanisms, isn’t it clear that the experts up on their lofty peaks don’t know what’s going on either? 
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku.