My word has Christian Noyer been throwing some scrumptious pies in the Euro cauldron off late! The governor of Bank of France while pointing fingers – of all kind and creed one has to admit – at Britain’s economic conditions asserted that France’s cross channel rivals possess much stronger credentials for being stripped off their supreme credit rating. This little round of French bullets has been fired by the banker at a time when the downgradation of his country’s triple A status is on the horizon. Noyer was uninhibitedly vociferous in the noise he generated against Britain, claiming that United Kingdom faced bigger deficits, had more debt, had considerably higher inflation, had lesser growth and has become the hub of credit shrinkage. Mr Noyer also had a scorn or two to throw at the agencies, who he labeled as ‘incomprehensible and irrational’. This war of words has come at a time when Anglo-French relationship has penetrated into the frosty realm of friction following the recent EU summit.
Francois Baroin, the French finance minister, cranked the verbal warfare up a couple of notches by claiming that Britain has now been marginalised following the summit and is facing an economic fix owing to coalition policies. Baroin reiterated that the pact was backed by every European country barring the solitary exception of Britain, “which history will remember as marginalised”. However, the tastiest serving, that had journalists all over the globe hankering after phrases to blow the matter out of proportion, came when Baroin juxtaposed Britain’s economy with that of Greece claiming that the former has a deficit level close to the latter and had much higher inflation prospects than France in this moment in time. And of course this further whets the French appetite of hurling coals over Britain’s economy and indeed their decision to detach themselves from the eurozone. Due to the combination of the aforementioned swipes, French leaders have asserted that if France were to be downgraded, they should be preceded by Britain in this regard.
The British hierarchy, on the contrary, has been more subtle in their jibes as they vie to reduce French proclamations to the stature of panic attacks. And, if one considers the fact that France might be finding the prospect being downgraded hard to digest one senses the raison d’être behind British assurance. A government source, quite cheekily expressing the British standpoint with regards to the French accusations said, “It’s so obvious what they are up to. They are in a completely different place to us. Where do you hide a tree? In a wood.” Anglo-French relations continue to strain as the tension escalates owing to the euro crisis and its related chapters. Nicolas Sarkozy dubbed David Cameron as a stubborn child following the latter’s demand for legal safeguards for the city of London at Brussels. Earlier at another summit this year Sarkozy even went as far as saying that Cameron “missed a good opportunity to shut up.” Considering the collaboration that the two leaders flaunted during the Nato campaign over Libya, the recent turn of events does suggest that the relationship between Britain and France is nosediving into stupor. France was one of 15 eurozone members who were “put on a negative watch by Standard & poor’s” earlier this month – even so, it was one of the six single currency countries with a triple A rating that had the sword of a two-notch downgradation hanging over their heads. As things stand, Britain’s position in this regard is not under threat and hence the French clamour might be more hollow than concrete.
The writer is Sub-Editor, Profit. He can be reached at [email protected]
