PRESS REVIEW – Wednesday, June 4: An investigation into the US farming industry finds that lobbyists led a campaign to discredit animal rights activists. Next, a "visionary" or a "jerk"? American op-eds analyse Elon Musk's short-lived time in office. Also, French papers discuss porn sites and their access ban on French users in protest at a new age verification law. Finally, a 200-year-old condom is displayed in one of Europe's biggest museums. 

An investigation by Wired magazine says that lobbyists for the farm industry led a campaign to "surveil, discredit, and suppress" animal rights activists for nearly a decade. The magazine says it consulted hundreds of emails and internal documents that show the "secretive and long-running collaboration" between the FBI and the Animal Agriculture Alliance, which represents the interests of American farmers and ranchers. According to Wired, the Alliance spied and served as an informant for the FBI. People working there went undercover at meetings of activists, for example, and sent the recordings to law enforcement. Wired says that the documents demonstrate the industry's mission and efforts to convince the authorities that activists are a "bioterrorism" threat to the United States. 

Also in the United States, Elon Musk's short-lived time in Trump's office has prompted continuous coverage from the press. But an opinion piece from The Washington Post says it's wrapping up its Musk coverage. "After this, I am never thinking about Trump’s favourite weird billionaire again," writes the author. The article is entitled "All the unforced errors of Elon Musk" and the author calls the billionaire himself a "walking, breathing unforced error". It says that with his Tesla background and his "creative genius", Musk had to do "literally nothing"” to safeguard his reputation. But for "some unknown reason he decided to insert himself in politics", becoming a real "jerk". The piece then criticises Musk – from his relationship with his estranged trans daughter to his time as head of DOGE. It adds that "Musk's short tenure represents the most terrible personification of the Trump administration". But not all op-eds are as critical. An opinion piece in the left-wing paper The New York Times calls Musk a "visionary", saying that yes, he can be "volatile and reckless" but that those who dismiss him as an idiot "haven't been paying close attention". The article says that his vision goes way beyond politics and towards "interstellar colonization". The paper writes that if he succeeds in that mission, his time in the White House will be just "a minor detail" in his story – and not how he will be remembered. 

We turn next to France, where well-known porn sites have banned French users from accessing them in a protest against France's new stricter age verification requirements. French daily Le Parisien writes that porn sites "aren’t bluffing", calling the ban a "poker move". It cites Pornhub's parent company Aylo, which claims that the new regulation is obliging adult sites to collect highly sensitive personal information and that this is putting user security at risk. The company also argues that the regulation might push users to migrate to "darker corners of the internet" that don't ask users to verify their age at all. Right-wing paper Le Figaro writes that from the age of 12, more than half of all underage boys visit porn sites every month. The paper cites a study saying that porn exposure "remains massive" – the number of young people visiting these sites has risen by 36 percent. 

We finish with another sex-related story: a central piece in one of Europe's biggest museums. A 200-year-old condom is going to be displayed at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, The Times reports. The curator says that it was probably a souvenir from a French brothel and not an actual condom for use. On closer examination we can see a scene comprising three clergymen and a nun. She is pointing at one of them saying "Voilà mon choix" or "Here is my choice". The museum says that the condom provides an insight into "sexuality and prostitution in the 19th century". 

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