Moody's warns on France: http://news.yahoo.com/moodys-assess-frances-outlook-over-next-3-months-214938332.html
I said that about France here on ET a long time ago! The only real asset France has is the UN veto which allows it to extract the wealth from poor countries such as the african countries. African countries should actually sue France for reparations from the colonial times. They stole the wealth of Africa.
We are reaching the point where there has to be admission that the money is lost and is not going to be repaid under any plan. The issue has shifted to who is going to take the hit and how the hit (writedown) is going to be structured to control collateral damage. The candidates are the Banks, the EU taxpayers with a concentration in the larger weathier Northern EU members (France, Ger), the IMF with participation from wealthy BRICs. Or stated differently, do we stick the loss with the banks that loaned the money because we asked them to, do we absorb the loss to the taxpayers, including those that have little to do with Greece, or can we get the whole world to share the hit. The news in the past few weeks has been about trial baloons for each of these general strategies. The meeting starting this week will be about how to take the hit within in EU because the banks can't afford the hit and the ROW will not join in. Ger banks sold a lot of their Greek debt months ago and are better positioned to take the hit with some Gov. support. So, Ger does not want to bail out everyone elses banks. This meeting is going to be about trying to get Germany to subsidize the whole EU banking system far outside its national liability. They will of course try to disguise this in complex garbage of details but if you look through its all about who takes the it.
Sue them before which court? Also the French have plenty of assets. Great infrastructure, many global economic powerhouses, a wealthy population... Did you know the French are the largest non central bank gold owners except the people of India? But yeah, they have nothing...Just last month 3000 French were caught in a little rowing boat trying to illegaly enter China.
The frog blinks. Sarkozy yields on ECB crisis role, pressure on Italy http://beta.finance.yahoo.com/news/sarkozy-yields-ecb-crisis-role-103657067.html
It's really cowardly and indeed very French to point fingers against Italy now. As soon as they loose AAA rating (which has not been done yet only thanks to huge policial pressure on rating agencies), someone else will point fingers at France for escalating debt crisis.
LOL. The EU's acting like a modern version of the Keystone Kops. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...o-snaps-five-day-gain-before-debt-summit.html
The French are masters in behind the scenes diplomacy and they always get what they want. The ECB will bow to French pressure you can take that to the bank.