Why does president Macron want European debt mutualisation? Why has France become the spokesman for the ‘southern states’ on a European rescue package? Why did the French finance minister punch the air on learning that 500 billion euros (£440bn) EU funding had been agreed on 9 April?
There are three reasons. First because France’s soaring national debt, its floundering economy and its remarkably generous coronavirus rescue package are lining France up for an Italian style sovereign debt crisis.
Second, because ideologically Macron believes that Europe must integrate further or shrivel.
But thirdly, and most important of all – though Macron dare not say so publicly – because France is adamant that Germany must not be allowed to benefit from the epidemic’s devastation of the French and ‘southern states’ economies to forge ahead again ever more dominant on the European continent. The motivation is economic, for the moment.
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