Every French person has a credit of € 1000 on Greece
For summer 2012, Greece seems any destination found. Each French, the centenary of the infant, does he not have a credit of just over 1000 euros? This is because the amount of debts of the French state vis-à-vis Athens. These figures naturally attain a new flavor since the output of the euro in Greece is no longer a taboo subject.
The amazing thing is that their magnitude and surprise us that the public do mine to discover. Certainly, the record may seem terribly technical. Quite wrongly. Because at the end for the aid to Greece, they pass through the ECB or the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) was created in 2010, is always reduced to public funds made by the States and their taxpayers.
Just before leaving his post as finance minister, Baroin said so too cursive that if Greece were to fail, there would be a "net" loss of 50 billion for our public finances. The potential risk actually rises to 66.4 billion euros if we take into consideration all the circuits in which the French state is involved. Nor our partners Euroland (each depending on the size of its population), but not less.
Three-stage rocket
We use here the estimate we have communicated Eric Dor, the research director of the IESEG School of Management in Lille, which has the merit of being comprehensive. You have to imagine a three-stage rocket. The first and simplest is direct bilateral aid, decided in May 2010, when it came to light that Athens could no longer finance its debts in the financial markets. The total program is 80 billion euros, 52.9 billion were actually loaned, the French share standing at 11.4 billion euros.
The second stage uses a more sophisticated financial techniques. The European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) borrow on the markets and relending to countries in need. But this is just a dummy account. If Greece should become defective, the EFSF would turn to the states that are the guarantor, and they should bail out pronto. French commitments in respect of Greece now total 22.5 billion euros.
The third floor, the tip of the rocket, is the Sioux and for the European Central Bank. Central banks are often presented, especially in France where we love to believe in miracles, as "deus ex machina." Do not they have the power to create money "from scratch" and fund banks, and why not states, as would today Francois Hollande? The ECB has paid with his person in two ways. First, she bought in the markets of Greece's debt to the tune of 45 billion euros. In case of default, such securities would lose much of their value if not all. The ECB would have to be recapitalized by its shareholders (Banque de France, Bundesbank …), their own properties States. Where a potential loss of 9.8 billion to French taxpayers.
Second channel used by the ECB, it helped Greece even more heavily in providing liquidity to commercial banks in Greece. This was done in exchange for securities that served as collateral (collateral in technical terms). In total, these contributions amounted officially to 104 billion at March 31, 2012. If Greece were to leave the euro and adopt the drachma, the collateral would be worth almost nothing. The potential risk for the French is estimated at 22.7 billion euros.
A "solidarity principle" sacrosanct
This is so schematic, the public debt of France. These elements of analysis are quite formal. One only wonders why the parliamentary assemblies have never produced a complete synthesis.
"It is our collective money is at stake. An attack on one country is an attack on the entire group, "explained Christine Lagarde, Minister of Finance, the National Assembly in spring 2010. This reminds the billboards to "sell" the Russian loans to investors of the Third Republic: "Lending to Russia is to pay to France."
In September 2011, the National Assembly voted as one man French participation in the second bailout in favor of Athens, on behalf of a "solidarity principle" sacrosanct. A senior ECB official told us recently his amazement, when he visited a prominent official of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly: it does not even remember the amount of commitments made by France EFSF!
This is "the unbearable lightness of being" French politician who reasons in terms of symbols always and forever depending on the nature of things. It is far from substantive discussions of the Bundestag and the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, presented in France as troublemakers around in circles. While they are only defending the principles of law and fact, the German public was heard of the case. "Avalanche, would you take me in your fall?" Sighs one with us.
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