French economy minister urges alternative to German austerity
The time has come for France to resist Germany’s “obsession” with austerity and promote alternative policies across the euro zone that support household consumption, firebrand French Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg said on Sunday.
Deficit-reduction measures carried out since the 2008 financial crisis have crippled Europe’s economies and governments need to change course swiftly or they will lose their voters to populist and extremist parties, Montebourg told a socialists’ meeting in eastern France.
“France is the euro zone’s second-biggest economy, the world’s fifth-greatest power, and it does not intend to align itself, ladies and gentlemen, with the excessive obsessions of Germany’s conservatives,” Montebourg said.
Montebourg said he had personally asked President Francois Hollande for “a major re-direction of our economic policy”. The government should now focus less on cutting debt than on supporting households to revive consumption, a traditional economic driver, he said.
Hollande’s business-minded policies have alienated many left-wing lawmakers and voters already frustrated with his failed pledge to curb unemployment. He is now the most unpopular president in over half a century, with an approval score of 17 percent in the latest Ifop poll.
“There is a disease specific to the euro zone, a serious disease, persistent and dangerous,” Montebourg said, arguing that fiscal and monetary austerity would not help end the crisis but had only worsened and extended it.
Source: reuters
