FRANCE PERSPECTIVE

Paris frames the earthquake through the lens of nuclear catastrophe. Le Monde opens with the thrice-revised magnitude and 80-centimeter waves at Kuji, but devotes an entire section to the ghost of Fukushima: 'Japan is haunted by the memory of the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake of 2011, which triggered a tsunami killing around 18,500 people and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.'

Le Monde and RFI's coverage insists on the evacuation order -- 'Evacuate immediately' -- quoted verbatim. The dramatization is deliberate: 20 Minutes leads with the official order in quotation marks, France Info with the raw magnitude. But it's the JMA phrase 'the probability is considered relatively higher than during normal times' that Le Monde repeats twice in the same article. The repetition isn't accidental: it signals a correspondent's anxiety trying to decode whether 1% means 'relax' or 'prepare for the worst.'

The notable absence: no French outlet mentions that nuclear plants are operating normally. For France, a country with 56 reactors, the silence on nuclear safety is an editorial omission that speaks volumes.