`Right person in right role' at the UN praised

Le Monde devotes an entire page to a favourable profile of Mrs Mary Robinson in its latest edition. It is unusual for France's most prestigious newspaper, with a readership of more than two million readers, to accord such importance to a new UN High Commissioner.

"Mary Robinson, human rights advocate," says the inch-high headline beneath a photograph of the former president.

The subtitle adds: "The President of the Republic of Ireland was able to impose her ideals in a very conservative country. She hopes to obtain the same success in her new job as High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN."

The weight of UN bureaucracy and the resistance of governments to what they see as interference in their internal affairs will be the main difficulties of her new position, Le Monde says.

"Endowed with solid good sense, combined with professional and political skill, she will need all her talents and will have to develop others in her new job," the paper adds.

Her UN Ecuadoran predecessor did not leave much of an impression but "she may be the right person in the right job at the right time."

The newspaper credits Mrs Robinson with achieving reforms on contraception, divorce, illegitimate children, the right to information on abortion, and the rights of homosexuals, travelling people and women.

She transformed the perception of emigration from a symbol of failure or national shame into an advantage, it says.

Mrs Robinson "symbolises the new international role of a country long considered an appendage of its big British neighbour".