France on the brink of the financial precipice: historic debt and rising interest rates

It smolders, it runs, financial illness. And France has never been so close to the precipice. In less than three days, two figures have illustrated this loss of control which is rapidly bringing our country closer to a cataclysmic crisis. The debt ratio, first. It has never been so high in eighty years, now comparable to that of the post-war period, when France was bloodless and in need of reconstruction. Then the interest rate. It is close to 5%, a level not reached for more than two decades. The first says our inability to control spending, to stop the headlong rush. The second reflects the growing distrust of our creditors in the face of our refusal to tackle the problem.

The fatal default did not occur, our leaders reassure themselves. But at what cost? Our lenders, the majority of them foreign, are already bleeding the French like never before. Almost all of the income tax falls into their pockets. Let’s open them…