Compare this from the Daily Mail:
‘New French President Francois Hollande – elected on an anti-austerity platform – was yesterday told ‘unprecedented’ cuts were needed to plug a gaping hole in the country’s budget.
France’s accounting watchdog warned the government needs to find £35billion in savings over the next two years to drag it out of the ‘danger zone’.
Didier Migaud, head of the country’s Cour des Comptes audit body, said repairing the battered public finances was ‘crucial’ and must not be delayed.
‘It will require an unprecedented brake on spending and higher taxes,’ he said.’
‘ His government would go ahead with plans to hire thousands more teachers and police, as well as creating 150,000 state-aided jobs. The moves are some of the other election pledges made by newly elected President Francois Hollande.
He also said he would not be introducing austerity measures, and that a number of summits – on social issues, the environment, education – would be held in the next few weeks.
“The path towards budgetary stability is the one that we highlighted and it is the one that we will take. I am calling for seriousness and budgetary responsibility”
Auditors warned this week that the French government needed to fill a hole of up to 10bn euros in this year’s budget to meet targets to cut the deficit.
Last week, it was announced that France’s public debt rose by 74bn euros in the year’s first quarter, bringing French public debt to 89% of GDP.’
Seems that someone is reluctant to admit too loudly the possibility that France’s much vaunted new spend, spend, spend President might have to cut back on a bit of that spending.
Cut ‘n’ spend…..just what Dr Milliband ordered, right auntie?.
The more reliable news networks – such as France 24 – are giving Hollande 6 months at the most.
I’m looking forward to the Beeb coverage of that.
The BBC will find some way to blame the tories, or German intransigence, for Hollande’s failure when it inevitably comes.
Or they will wait for another right wing government to come to power in France and blame them for it.
Amazing priorities on display from the News Online Beeboid who wrote this up. Right at the top of the order we get:
1. Crushing punitive taxes on the wealthy
2. Homosexual marriage
3. A poll showing a majority of French favoring homosexual marriage and homosexuals adopting children, which is not part of the news of the Government’s policy announcement, just a bit of social engineering from the BBC, waving this in your face. The French are superior to you now because of this, you see.
4. Drastic reduction of (now, since Fukushima, for no logical reason) evil nuclear power
5. A promise to ease the tax burden on the lower earners
What about the financial crisis the country is facing, the actual point of the announcement? Not to worry, says the BBC, and then we get what Alan quoted from them about going ahead with a massive public sector spending program.
Excellent news priorities, BBC. Way to have your finger on the pulse of the most important issues.
Beeboids (and others) with second homes in France may be less politically enthusiastic about Hollande now:
“Francois Hollande announces French tax grab on holiday homes”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/offshorefinance/9377307/Francois-Hollande-announces-French-tax-grab-on-holiday-homes.html
‘Galliawatch’:
“Impending Economic Disaster”
http://galliawatch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/impending-economic-disaster.html