Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore
Heard this on the radio tonight (I get BBC World now, no more lame pop music for me, WOHO!!).

The EU's central bank director(or something...) said that France is dragging down the entire economy of the EU... And then they quoted a french minister of some sort, who declared that France is bankrupt.

So, what's going on? Is it just a hoax to gain some support for hugely unpopular and idiotic "economic measures" or am I just paranoid and it's really true? If so, how could it happen?

I know I'm doing my part to keep the people of Bordeaux and Champagne employed...
Keep supporting the fine citizens of Bordeaux, whatever happens!

Thanks Marcellus. Here are some more little tidbits of information:
the 'French minister of some sort' is the Prime Minister, François Fillon. He did not mean that France is literally bankrupt, that it can't pay her bills. He meant that the level of government spending is unsustainable. Which is considered scaremongering if you are left, or about bloody time if you are right.
To immediately drive the point home: he made his remarks in the provinces, in Corsica, before an audience of farmers demanding yet more money from Paris, for God knows what reason this time.
His point is, that France hasn't had a balanced budget since the 1980's, and that the government can't indefinately pay lavish subsidies, retirement benefits, and employ a gazillion very well paid civil servants. You can't run a chronic deficit forever.

Meanwhile, France has been having arguments with the ECB (European Central Bank). The head of which happens to be another Frenchman, Jean-Claude Trichet. The ECB is criticised for its fixation on tempering inflation, for keeping interest rates and the euro too high. Which are tempering France's economic growth, a growth that has already been factored into the budget.

The countries of the eurozone have a stabilization pact, obliging members to keep their deficit within certain limits. Naturally, mutual obligations is French for what others countries must do to support France's interests, but by now France's chronic deficit spending is become quite worrysome. So Trichet heartily welcomed Fillon's remark.

As for 'a hoax to gain some support for hugely unpopular and idiotic "economic measures"', well, I suspect that is what we will hear on the streets too this fall when Sarkozy tries to drive his reforms trough...
I mean who can blame the transport unions for going on strike next month, when such idiotic economic measures are proposed as trying to end train drivers receiving a full pension at the age of fifty.