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Italian centre-left government appointed in 1998 became even more adventurous. D’Alema proposed financing a European economic stimulus programme through euro bonds and not factoring the associated expenditures into the national deficits. Gerhard Schröder in Berlin proved resistant. Yet the German ambassador in Rome cabled home that members of the Italian government were demanding that the budget consolidation be spread out, the stability pact be interpreted more flexibly and Italy be freed ‘from the shackles of the Maastricht Treaty’. Such a stance would hardly be
) without its fundamental overhaul, this commitment did not survive the first few months of the presidency, the TSGG being ratified by the French parliament on 11 October 2012 (Drake, 2013 ). Having ratified this key European treaty, France was then treated in a rather indulgent fashion by the European Commission, which revised the country's deficit and debt targets on three occasions (to insist that it meet the Maastricht Stability Pact criteria by 2014, then 2015, and finally by 2017). Hollande was helped by new allies, such as Matteo Renzi's Italy, and above all by
commitment to bring France back within the criteria of the Maastricht Stability Pact. Once installed as president, Macron exploited a favourable set of circumstances to lend leadership credibility to his claim that France is back. The book The book is divided into two main parts. Part I, ‘Out with the old’, focuses mainly on the events of 2016 and 2017, as experienced by key actors of the ‘old’ world: the then President Hollande, former President Sarkozy and former premier (and 2017 LR candidate) François Fillon. Chapter 1 interprets 2016 as
exchange rate, the standard mechanism for balancing out differences between national economies. A ‘Stability Pact’, supposedly committing members to budgetary restraint, was an inadequate substitute. By 2004, it was being flouted by France and Germany, the very nations responsible for the single currency’s existence. Short of a fiscal union, it is hard to see just what mechanism could have replaced floating exchange rates so as to enable countries with economic imbalances to correct them. Accordingly when weak and often imprudently managed economies descended into