- France faces a bond market rout and the prospect of government collapse and another deficit blowout.
- Candidates to succeed President Emmanuel Macron in May are increasing pressure on the ECB to buy bonds or cancel debt.
- The standoff evokes the euro area debt crisis more than a decade ago, when the ECB faced investors over sovereign bonds.
Quotes
“From street protests to a bond market rout, France’s multiple crises are threatening to drag the European Central Bank into the kind of faceoff with investors that it hasn’t seen since the euro area’s debt crisis more than a decade ago.”
“As the prospect of government collapse and another deficit blowout loom, candidates to succeed President Emmanuel Macron in May are increasingly loading pressure on the ECB to step in to buy bonds or even cancel debt.”