Today’s newspapers are a mixed bag with more focus on foreign stories – from the Franco-Turkish dustup over the Armenian genocide to a museum of broken hearts in Croatia.

On the domestic front, parents of Esteban attacker forced to flee their home; foreign students give the Dutch economy zilch; schoolchildren’s protest march ends in violence and a Dutch stamp collector who discovered Utopia in North Korea – artform only.

“Because we’re splitting up”: Ajax hooligan’s parents
The parents of the infamous Ajax pitch invader who attacked AZ Alkmaar’s goalkeeper Esteban Alvarado on Wednesday during a Dutch cup match with Amsterdam’s Ajax have fled their home, announces De Telegraaf in a front-page splash.

“Because of Wesley’s crazy stunt, we now have 35,000 people on our trail,” wails his mother Marijke before grabbing her things to go into hiding.

In typical parents-blame-themselves style, Marijke adds: “Wesley was blotto. But drink is never an excuse. We think Wesley did it because we’re splitting up after 28 years of marriage.”

Wesley was a bright pupil and managed to get into a top-level secondary school, a ‘gymnasium’, where pupils are groomed to be future doctors and lawyers. But he left without his diploma and ended up working at a cake shop, writes the paper. Predictably, he suffers from a behavioural disorder – ODD.

The Dutch FA have meanwhile ruled that Esteban will not face any suspension for kicking the hooligan kung-fu style. “It was in God’s hands. I knew I’d be playing in the first game next year,” says Esteban trying to win over the media with mellifluous words, backed up by a Telegraaf picture of him looking meek and angelic. “I managed to avoid him just in time. I must have a guardian angel.”

Dutch MPs were also shocked about the football incident, writes AD. Deputy Justice Minister Fred Teeven is an Ajax fan and was peeved that the game was interrupted when Ajax was 1-0 ahead. But he understands the goalkeeper’s reaction. “I saw a player defending himself. As a human being I have my own opinion about it, but, as a deputy minister, I’ll keep it to myself.”

Schoolkids’ protest gets out of hand
NRC Handelsblad tells another tale of aggression. It picks up on one of Wednesday's stories about Dutch schoolkids who went on strike in protest at a hike in the number of hours per year they’re obliged to spend in school – without getting more lessons. At a rally organised by the school students’ union LAKS in Amsterdam, police arrested ten demonstrating pupils.

“Police on horseback using water cannons were deployed to disperse the crowds,” reports NRC. “The atmosphere was menacing, pent-up,” explains a police spokesperson. “Seven schoolkids were arrested for throwing dangerous fireworks, the other three arrests were for destruction of property, insulting a police officer and throwing a dangerous object.”

There was a threatening vibe from the outset. “Groups of youths starting fighting each other and hurling cigarette lighters, pens and currant buns at [Freedom Party] MP Harm Beertema, says NRC. But LAKS said the rally was a “great success”.

The governing conservative VVD party called on Education Minister Marja van Bijsterveldt to withdraw grants from the schools which don’t agree with increasing the obligatory hours from 1,000 to 1,040 hours.

Dutch get nothing in return from foreign students
“The majority of foreign students leave the Netherlands as soon as they’ve finished their degree. They have very little connection with the country and don’t contribute anything to the economy,” writes de Volkskrant.

This is a conclusion reached by Sander van den Eijnden, director of Nuffic, an organisation for international cooperation in higher education. He thinks the Dutch would benefit more from its foreign student influx if they try to make the students feel more at home.

“It’s paradoxical. Our strong point is that we offer courses in English – that’s why they come here. But it’s also our weakness. Foreign students stay on the margin of society because they don’t do anything in Dutch. It’s a train journey with the window blinds pulled down.”

The Fontys technical college in the southern city of Venlo near the German border is a coruscating illustration of how it shouldn’t be. “One lecturer told me that separate courses are offered in the German language - with a German lecturer and German students who are being educated for the German job market,” sighs Van den Eijnden, “hogwash internationalisation”.

The government agrees. Foreigners are flocking here to study, at a cost of 6,000 euros per head each year. That amounts to 108 million euros annually for educating students from other European countries. Of course, Dutch students also study in other EU cities, but not as many. Parliament will debate on the issue today as the government scurries to close the gap.

Working in a grey world for a rosey future
NRC Handelsblad carries an intriguing feature on a Dutch stamp collector, Willem van der Bijl, who managed to get inside reclusive North Korea on a regular basis over the past ten years - thanks to a Korean official he met at a European stamp collectors’ fair.

He and a friend got a taste for the propaganda art and collected thousands of paintings between them.
Van der Bijl set up a “branch office” in the communist country and “his employees travelled under arduous conditions through the whole country, often for months on end, to make sure the paintings came over the border.”

When he closed shop this summer, the authorities moved in right away and arrested him. He was released two weeks later but vowed never to return. Now that the Great Leader has passed away, Van der Bijl wants to show his art.

Unsurprisingly, the paintings show scenes like cheering schoolchildren at a thriving iron works factory, a harmonious demonstration where unity reigns or a smiling young couple with their son on the balcony of their skyscraper apartment.

“Tall buildings like that don’t exist in Pyongyang. And the cranes you’d need...I never saw one during my 24 visits there. As for the iron works, in reality all the services in North Korea are on their last legs. If a bus breaks down, it’s the end of the journey. It’s too expensive to replace it.”

Van der Bijl asked friends he met in North Korea if they really believed in the images in the paintings. “’Do you not see that everything is grey outside, that the paintings are a utopia?’ he asked his guide. He’ll never forget her answer, because she genuinely believed it. ‘I see that, Mr Van der Bijl, but this illustrates our future. Something we have to work hard for.’”

The Dutch Press Review staff will be working hard at their Christmas dinner on Sunday and Monday. We’ll be back with a look at the Dutch papers on Tuesday.