I've got a couple of fingers for them.
NEW YORK - First it was Athens. Then Rome. Could Paris be next?
While Italy has replaced Greece as the focus of anxiety in Europe’s worsening debt crisis, investors are increasingly concerned about France, whose banks are among the world’s biggest and are closely linked with their US counterparts.
One crucial gauge of investor sentiment, the difference between what France pays to borrow versus what Germany pays, has doubled since Oct. 1 and last week reached its widest since the formation of the euro currency zone in 1999. And speculation that France could lose the triple-A rating on its sovereign debt intensified after Standard & Poor’s mistakenly said it was downgrading France’s debt.
A jump in Italian bond yields to more than 7 percent last week, on concern about Rome’s ability to borrow, reminded investors just how much Italian debt French banks hold. But French banks also hold a lot of French government bonds, whose yields have risen in tandem with concerns that Paris’s finances may be strained as it foots a larger bill to help prevent the crisis from engulfing Italy.
French banks are also more dependent on short-term financing than their rivals elsewhere, leaving them vulnerable if Italy’s problems create a Lehman-like freeze in credit markets.
For the moment, the ascent of a new interim government in Rome has calmed those fears. French politicians, regulators, and bankers insist Italy’s problems are contained.
Right.
But French banks have traditionally turned to American money-market funds to finance the gap between what they possess in deposits and what they owe, and though French banks have cut this borrowing substantially in recent months, it is still huge. At the end of October, US money-market funds owned $84 billion worth of French debt.
Estimates for total American bank exposure to France vary widely. Direct holdings of French sovereign debt are small but total exposure runs into the hundreds of billions, according to the Bank for International Settlements. A recent Congressional Research Service report said US bank exposure to German and French banks total over $1.2 trillion.
Translation: Another bailout needed.
The roots of France’s exposure to Italy lie in the decision by French banks to expand over the last decade by acquiring banks there and operating big branch networks. Among banks on the Continent, French institutions have been the most exposed to Italy, according to Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, holding more than $100 billion worth of sovereign Italian bonds and on the line for an additional $300 billion in loans to private borrowers like Italian companies and consumers. These figures have been dropping in recent weeks, however.
As a result, imposing a write-down in the value of Italy’s debt, a so-called haircut, would have a much more devastating effect on bank capital levels than the 50 percent reduction in the face value of Greek debt European leaders agreed to last month.
See what will happen if the banksters don't get their loot?
What is more, the amount of money Italy owes - just under 2 trillion euros - dwarfs the 350 billion euro debt load of Greece.
Anxieties about Italy eased Friday, though, with yields on its debt falling below 7 percent. On Saturday, Parliament approved austerity measures sought by the European Union, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi quit.
As for France itself, its economy is healthier Italy’s. In Italy, debt equals 120 percent of gross domestic product; France’s ratio is a more manageable 85 percent. And the French economy has grown at about twice the rate of Italy’s over the last decade.
Authorities in France say French banks have adequate capital and expect efforts by European leaders, as well a new Italian government committed to fiscal reform, to help keep the crisis from becoming more severe.
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And just to make sure you get the point:
"Firebomb precedes Mohammed satire" November 03, 2011|Associated Press
PARIS - A firebombing that destroyed the offices of a French satirical weekly newspaper that “invited’’ the Prophet Mohammed to be its guest editor was denounced yesterday by Muslim leaders and politicians from all sides.
But behind the public show of unity was a fear that the spoof could trigger a wave of violent protests among Western Europe’s largest Muslim population, and beyond.
No one was injured in the blaze, which started around 1 a.m. in the offices of Charlie Hebdo in eastern Paris, hours before the issue featuring a caricature of Mohammed on its front page hit the newsstands.
The director of the weekly, who goes by the name Charb, called the issue “a joke’’ and defiantly held up a copy of the paper as he stood amid the rubble. He vowed that next week’s issue would be published.
The latest issue of Charlie Hebdo was focused on last week’s victory of a once-banned Islamist party in Tunisia’s first free elections and last month’s decision by Libya’s new leaders that Sharia, or Islamic law will rule post-Khadafy Libya. The front-page of the paper, subtitled “Sharia Hebdo,’’ a reference to Islamic law, showed a cartoonlike man with a turban, white robe, and beard.
We "liberated" Libya into Sharia Law?
A police official cited a witness saying that someone was seen throwing two firebombs at the building.
And that's that. The fact that the incident is forgotten tells you a lot about who might have been behind it.
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For my part I am SICK of the FALSE FLAGS and HOAXES endlessly appearing in my AGENDA-PUSHING PAPER!
Message received:
"France to sit out UN vote on Palestine" November 05, 2011|Associated Press
PARIS - France said yesterday that it would abstain when the UN Security Council votes on whether to admit Palestine as a full member of the world body, the latest blow to the Palestinians’ push to gain majority support despite a promised US veto.
Earlier this week, France voted to approve a Palestinian request for membership in UNESCO.
Then they were firebombed by Muslims(?).
That vote came as something of a surprise for France, but the Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued at a regular online briefing yesterday that it was meant to move forward the discussion of an independent Palestinian state.
France walks a tightrope between support for the Palestinians and for Israel, and it always pushes to play a decisive role in the peace process....
Israeli blackmail and threats make everyone feel that way.
The Palestinians are still trying to rally the required nine-vote majority that would trigger the veto, believing that would give them a moral victory by placing the United States at odds with most of the international community....
Latest word is they will not be getting the nine votes needed.
Also see: Palestinians Put U.S. on Spot
They sure did.
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And could this be the reason why France finds itself under threat?
Unaware of live mike, Sarkozy called Netanyahu a ‘liar’
Since the Globe won't let me in....
In diplomacy, as in politics, there are plenty of cases in which a world leader has been caught unawares on a “hot” microphone. There have been fewer, if any, in which that leader has been caught calling another an outright liar.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy takes the prize.
Sarkozy, in Cannes for the G-20 summit last week, believed he was speaking privately with President Obama when he reportedly described how frustrating he finds Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But their microphones were on, and the conversation was picked up by reporters listening to a simultaneous translation.
“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama, according to the Reuters news agency, whose reporter was among those who heard the gaffe.
“You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you,” Obama replied, according to a French interpreter.
Doesn't look to me like Obama is enjoying the interactions. I suppose that is why he will be a one-termer. Not enough zeal for the Zionist cause.
The Associated Press, which also had a reporter present, said news outlets “did not initially report the [remarks] because they were deemed private under French media traditions.”
A French Web site, Arret sur images, published a report late Monday, and the news agencies — not to mention the rest of the French-speaking world — have joined in, traditions to the wayside.
The blogs have won.
It was unclear what prompted Sarkozy to lash out, but the French have made little secret of their frustration with Israel’s decision to expand large-scale settlements. At the United Nations in September, Sarkozy called for Palestinian-Israeli negotiations to begin within a month and for the General Assembly to set a one-year deadline for talks to yield an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Last week, France voted to support membership for Palestine in UNESCO, despite U.S. pressure to the contrary.
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