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"France is caught between the protesters on the street calling for more funds from the government and 'bond vigilantes' in the markets who punish perceived fiscal irresponsibility by betting against the country’s debt."

Incredible:

Not only does it now cost France more to borrow than it does Italy and Greece; a rising number of big French companies enjoy lower market interest rates than does the French state. Of all the G7 nations, it has suffered most from the debt sell-off triggered by the Iran war

Amazing... France is worse off than Greece in the bond market's view, haha...

France’s political gridlock and worsening debt have made things very different. A series of ratings downgrades has helped push up the country’s borrowing costs, which passed Greece’s in late 2024 and Italy’s last year. Investors now label France the “new periphery”.

Terrifying quotes. Also, have fun staying poor. #1590694

yous either force the ECB to print the yields down — have fun fighting global bond markets... — and thus schoolteacher and nurses and civil servants and the rest of the worthless professions striking pay for it through the general prices rising... or France fiscally squeezes e.g. the boomers and get their finances in order.

the ECB’s capacity to buy huge quantities of bonds could provide the ultimate backstop on the basis that the central bank would not allow a big European economy to tip into a full-blown debt crisis.

We all know what the outcome will be.

Ah yes, a kid shitposting purple monkey can dream:

the worst-case scenario, some think the European Central Bank could be forced to come to the rescue. That could come at the cost of demanding structural reforms, such as slashing pension spending, which the French public has long rejected.

Almost a quarter of public spending is gobbled up by pensions. French retirees leave the workforce earlier and receive relatively generous benefits by OECD standards. Attempts to push back the retirement age trigger angry protests.

FTB. Fuck their lives.

Surely, then, there's some sane household economist/politician providing decent ways out? Naaah, who are you kidding?!

The former Trotskyist recently proclaimed that French bonds held by the central bank could be thrown “into the fire”, or cancelled with no consequence. Debt investors were spooked that such a radical idea was even in the public debate...

Yeah, I mean... Try it? You're correct that you can practically speaking do it — once. And then you'll live with the insane consequences. Have fun staying completely fucked.

I do love some of this shittalking we can fix it ourselves! Yes,I mean of course. So can the US or every other jurisdiction... in principle. In practice, with gridlocks and protests and reelection and subject to democratic short-sightedness, of fucking course you can fix this yourself!

This eurozone metric looks fishy... This graph is strange. I definitely wasn't aware of how far away France has pulled from Eurozone "average"... but I suspect this numerical (not GDP-weighted average!!) is pulled down by stupidly low Scandi and e.g., Baltic countries with like 50% of GDP in gov debt — households and businesses are carrying insane debt loads in these places instead of the government itself.