{"id":35741,"date":"2012-11-19T04:00:23","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T04:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/economist_france_and_the_euro-the_time-bomb_at_the_heart_of_europe\/"},"modified":"2012-11-19T04:00:23","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T04:00:23","slug":"economist_france_and_the_euro-the_time-bomb_at_the_heart_of_europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=35741","title":{"rendered":"(Economist) France and the euro&#8211;The time-bomb at the heart of Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The threat of the euro\u2019s collapse has abated for the moment, but putting the single currency right will involve years of pain. The pressure for reform and budget cuts is fiercest in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, which all saw mass strikes and clashes with police this week&#8230;. But ahead looms a bigger problem that could dwarf any of these: France.<\/p>\n<p>The country has always been at the heart of the euro, as of the European Union. President Fran\u00c3\u00a7ois Mitterrand argued for the single currency because he hoped to bolster French influence in an EU that would otherwise fall under the sway of a unified Germany. France has gained from the euro: it is borrowing at record low rates and has avoided the troubles of the Mediterranean. Yet even before May, when Fran\u00c3\u00a7ois Hollande became the country\u2019s first Socialist president since Mitterrand, France had ceded leadership in the euro crisis to Germany. And now its economy looks increasingly vulnerable as well.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/leaders\/21566640-why-france-could-become-biggest-danger-europes-single-currency-time-bomb-heart\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The threat of the euro\u2019s collapse has abated for the moment, but putting the single currency right will involve years of pain. The pressure for reform and budget cuts is fiercest in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, which all saw<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=35741\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,50,460,582,589,595,592,149,591,200,590,144,468,151,585,596],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-politics","category-international-news-commentary","category-european-sovereign-debt-crisis-of-2010","category-consumerconsumer-spending","category-corporationscorporate-life","category-credit-markets","category-currency-markets","category-economy","category-euro","category-europe","category-european-central-bank","category-foreign-relations","category-france","category-politics-in-general","category-the-banking-systemsector","category-the-credit-freeze-crisis-of-fall-2008the-recession-of-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}