Socialist victory in France

President Hollande

The new French president may be more open to austerity, and less able to bring a change of course in Europe, than his public expects

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Readers' comments



CosmicCharlie in reply to Econ101z

Right Econ101z, US regulations forced financial institutions to give loans that could not be sustained. It was not that little regulated entities like Country Wide and others were giving out loans to the unworthy and booking big profits based on the fees they collected that caused the mouths of the financial institutions to you will probably suggest that somehow Barnie Frank caused JP Morgan Chase to lose $2 billion (something conspicuously absent from the pro-bank Economist).

Nice try at the revisionist history!

CJFSA in reply to Econ101z

I forgot to mention that should all banks and other financial institutions be kept in size small enough not cause a significant source of systemic risk in the financial system. And, mortgages be limited at 75% of the underlying asset market value with the risk of default remaining within the issuing bank not to be passed on to the unsuspecting public; then I would not care about public regulations. However when an institution such as JP Morgan has assets which are more than ten percent of the USA gross domestic product, were you to include all the undisclosed non balance sheet items, then regulations are a must given that they are a major component of the economic system which by definition is a public item as opposed private.


So perhaps electing a socialist is the only way to get austerity done - with a public mandate.


I don't think modern politicians ever limit themselves by promising something achievable - they always go far beyond the imaginable. Not sure if anyone still actually expects the promises to materialize. If so, they will be disappointed.
But whatever the matter, France still has the best wine and cheese - life can't be that bad over there!

mashed potatoes in reply to markus92

Nonsense. Today, the German voters have massively rejected a moron belonging to Merkels party in NRW and voted for a sympathetic opponent instead. Merkel's popularity has not decreased at all even though all blood suckers.. pardon, socialists in Europe and Europe's South will exploit this story. They should be careful not to burn their fingers, the markets are still there for a judgement if they like austerity or not.

french bashing by TE standards was full play, even during Sarkozy's mendate, TE is just titilalating the Europeans xenophoby towards the French, and manipulating the opinions in order that people accept Brussels/Berlin diktats, for neo liberalism agenda, but that would only favors the major player, Germany !
p'tain, who said that the IV Reich was going to happen again ?

Suibne Geilt

the economist, adhering as always to the law of cultural lag, will continue to sell a dead socialist narrative until the last nickel gets stolen.

CJFSA in reply to Econ101z

Some will say that 48.5% understand reality, while only the bold are responsible for the world's evolution. Were the world ran only by people whom understood reality, the Bourbon family would still be reigning in France and the USA would still be a British colony. The financial system collapse because of costly and complex deregulations strangling the universe. Outside of arrogance, I wonder what other personal attributes would qualify you best.


Thank you for this article. I sometimes suspect that despite the impressively alert and thoughtful insight of much of the Economist, there is an office somewhere near the heart of the building which ressembles the Vatican, faithfully reasserting dogma whatever may happen in the world. That office inspired the "He doesn't deserve it" headline when Tony Blair won the 97 elections, and went on to pen the recent "rather dangerous Mr Hollande", amongst others. I have no objections to dogma, catholic, islamic or economic, but it's not particularly interesting. It's good to get back to the business of the world as it is.


Many ordinary people would probably hope that the Socialist Hollande would guillotine a few banksters so as to scare off the rest of the fraudster monkeys who also do not want to pay taxes. The Merkel chancellor is always blaming the irresponsible pigs for taking on debts they cannot pay, but when does lay some blame on the greedy and grossly irresponsible banksters pushing out huge credit line to buy things like expensive German-made submarines, Euro fighters, tanks etc. which they do not really needed as there is no real desire for wars except created by politicians.

Ed the Ed

I saw a bit of that telly "debate" May 2nd - Hollande, or "Mollande" or "l'huitre" or " flamby" attacked Sarko because the latter supressed loads of useless jobs in the public education system - Hollande said , if elected, he'd create 12'000 jobs/ year in that very same segment, making it a total of 60'000 in the 5 year term - he also added the creation of a new tax to support the new expenses - so here goes the nanny state in it's might
fasten your seat belts, French folks, the clown-in-power is going for big tax rip-offs

Marie.Claude in reply to Econ101z

you're repeating the same BS like the fashist Volker Kauder did !

"Retirement at 62 is not austerity"

Do you think that germany advocating for retirement at 67 is the reality in Germany?

Most of the Germans retire at 61/62, the 67 agenda is going to be fully implemented in 1927/28, while in France it's programmed for 2023.

I recall you that the french birth rate is 2/2%, in Germany, it's 1,31%

Also in France, you can't retire at 60 if you haven't achieved 41/42 years of work, which isn't required in Germany, just that the German Propaganda Machine works better than in france, I must say that Germany masterised Propaganda since a while, otherwise, not so many Germans would have been trapped into the nazy scheme !

" 56% of employees work for the government, and the 51.5% would like to increase that percentage"

mere BS, it's rather ~30% of the 70% of the french working population

Who needs supports from BS**ters of your sort?

If you are so convinced, then get all the money you can lay your hands on, and go long on the Euro and everything else you can think of. Why not make a killing on a certain bet, eh? In my neck of the woods, in order to be taken seriously, one has to put his/her money where his/her moth is... Talk is cheap... Go ahead, prove all those silly people, who are shorting the Euro, wrong. Again, talk is cheap...



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