Dagelijkse discussie - 27 november 2024

Frankrijk op de rand van de afgrond: Begrotingsstrijd bedreigt de regering

French sovereign bonds and stocks fell on Wednesday as concerns intensified among investors that a dispute over a belt-tightening draft budget could bring down Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government.

The sell-off pushed the gap between 10-year French borrowing costs and those of Germany to as high as 0.9 percentage points, a level not reached since the Eurozone crisis in 2012. It later fell back to 0.86 points.

The benchmark Cac 40 stock index was down 0.7 per cent, the worst performer among major European markets, having earlier dropped more than 1 per cent.

Jefferi…  es’ chief European strategist Mohit Kumar said the sell-off was due to “concerns that the current government may not survive the budget”.

Barnier is seeking to pass a budget with €60bn of spending cuts and tax increases despite his lack of a working majority in parliament. He has confirmed he will have to use a constitutional tool to override lawmakers to do so, a move that will expose him to a no-confidence vote that could bring down his government along with its budget.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has emerged as a key player in the drama because her Rassemblement National party is the biggest in the lower house and its votes would be needed for a censure motion to pass. After meeting Barnier on Monday, Le Pen warned that the prime minister was not listening to her demands to protect the French public from tax rises and she reiterated a threat to bring down the government.

In an interview with French broadcaster TF1 on Tuesday, Barnier called on opposition parties to pass the budget, arguing that if it did not go through, there would be a “big storm and very serious turbulence on the financial markets”.

Against a backdrop of political instability, the sell-off in French government bonds has pushed the 10-year bond yield above 3 per cent, as investors worry about the sustainability of Paris’s debt load. Yields are now only marginally lower than those in Greece, the country at the heart of the sovereign debt crisis more than a decade ago.

Israël stemt in met wapenstilstand in Libanon

Many factors fed into Benjamin Netanyahu’s eventual decision to take up a US-brokered ceasefire and stop Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. His war aims against Hizbollah were also always more modest than the “total victory” he has sought against Hamas in Gaza.

But in confronting the many domestic critics of the deal — including far-right government ministers, northern Israeli mayors and opposition figures — Netanyahu calculated that his goals had been largely met, while the risks of pushing on were mounting.

“Hizbollah is not Hamas. We cannot totally destroy it. It was not on the…   cards,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu who now works at Washington think-tank Jinsa. “Lebanon is too big. Hizbollah is too strong.”

This ceasefire deal “is not the dream that many Israelis had”, he said. But Amidror highlighted Israel’s dwindling munition stockpiles and the “pressure” on military reservists who had been fighting for months. “Israel cannot afford another year of war” at its current scale in the north, he said.

Israeli officials consistently said their goal was the safe return to their homes of the tens of thousands of northern residents evacuated after Hizbollah began firing on Israel following Hamas’s October 7 attack last year.

Officials said this would require pushing Hizbollah fighters back from the Israel-Lebanon frontier and changing the “security reality” along the border.

After months of relatively limited exchanges of cross-border fire with Hizbollah, Israel escalated in September, setting off thousands of explosive pagers and walkie-talkies in an audacious covert operation, launching waves of air strikes across Lebanon, and initiating a punishing land invasion of its northern neighbour for the first time in almost two decades.

In the span of a few weeks, most of Hizbollah’s leaders, including chief Hassan Nasrallah, were killed, and much of the group’s vast missile and rocket arsenal was destroyed. Israeli warplanes struck Beirut at will, and ground troops ranged across southern Lebanon.

Did Russia Use a Chinese Ship to Sabotage Europe’s Data Lines?

Many factors fed into Benjamin Netanyahu’s eventual decision to take up a US-brokered ceasefire and stop Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. His war aims against Hizbollah were also always more modest than the “total victory” he has sought against Hamas in Gaza.But in confronting the many domestic critics of the deal — including far-right government ministers, northern Israeli mayors and opposition figures — Netanyahu calculated that his goals had been largely met, while the risks of pushing on were mounting.“Hizbollah is not Hamas. We cannot totally destroy it. It was not on the cards,” said…   Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu who now works at Washington think-tank Jinsa. “Lebanon is too big. Hizbollah is too strong.”This ceasefire deal “is not the dream that many Israelis had”, he said. But Amidror highlighted Israel’s dwindling munition stockpiles and the “pressure” on military reservists who had been fighting for months. “Israel cannot afford another year of war” at its current scale in the north, he said.Israeli officials consistently said their goal was the safe return to their homes of the tens of thousands of northern residents evacuated after Hizbollah began firing on Israel following Hamas’s October 7 attack last year.Officials said this would require pushing Hizbollah fighters back from the Israel-Lebanon frontier and changing the “security reality” along the border.After months of relatively limited exchanges of cross-border fire with Hizbollah, Israel escalated in September, setting off thousands of explosive pagers and walkie-talkies in an audacious covert operation, launching waves of air strikes across Lebanon, and initiating a punishing land invasion of its northern neighbour for the first time in almost two decades.In the span of a few weeks, most of Hizbollah’s leaders, including chief Hassan Nasrallah, were killed, and much of the group’s vast missile and rocket arsenal was destroyed. Israeli warplanes struck Beirut at will, and ground troops ranged across southern Lebanon.