''IMF warns over-taxed France risks slipping behind Italy and Spain''

From The Telegraph

''Throwing the guantlet at the feet of the Socialist president Francois Hollande, the IMF said rising tax rates are undermining France as a place "to work and invest" and leading to a "significant loss of competitiveness".

"There is a risk it will get worse if France does not adapt at the same pace as its trading partners in Europe, notably Italy and Spain," it said.

The IMF challenge had an added piquancy coming from a body headed by France's Christine Lagarde, widely touted as the next Gaulliste leader and a future rival for the French presidency.''

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''The toxic French economic cocktail: weak growth, poor competitiveness, fiscal tightening''

From Bond Vigilantes

''Since the start of 2011 French economic growth has been extremely disappointing, falling from an annual rate of nearly 2.5% to just 0.3% in the second quarter of this year.  Of course the whole Eurozone has seen weakness over the period, but French growth has lagged that of the “core” over the period.  German GDP growth was at or above 2% for all but the last two quarters, and now stands at 1%.  Purchasing Managers’ surveys for September show more divergence, with more falls in French manufacturing and services, whilst the German surveys strengthened.''

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''France begins debate on EU austerity treaty''

From The Local France

''The National Assembly debate comes after tens of thousands of left-wing protesters marched through Paris on Sunday denouncing EU-imposed belt-tightening, although they insisted they were not criticising the government of Socialist President Francois Hollande.
 
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault set the tone, saying France would not be sacrificing its "sovereignty" by ratifying the text.
 
"The treaty itself imposes no constraints on public spending," he said. "It does not specify how it should be distributed. It does not dictate the methods one has to take to balance public finances.''

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''Thousands protest against French austerity budget''

From EU Observer

''French President Francois Hollande faced his first serious public backlash after up to 50,000 lined the streets of Paris on Sunday (30 September) in protest against his €37 billion austerity budget.

Organisers of the event, which brought together around 60 left-wing groups, claimed that 50,000 protestors took to the streets to denounce the cuts programme.''

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''Ambitions of France: Installation of Military Base in Libya For Recolonization?''

From StratRisks

''As in Iraq, we are going to divide the country: Useful areas of Libya will be secured but the rest of the country will be delivered to instability. It is spectacular to see how the Western powers want to print a situation of permanent war in Libya. For a year, information from the installation of a military base in the country western North Africa, is broadcast repeatedly and knowingly. And by dint of repeating things, we finally admit as stringent as they are. Because they arrived on NATO tanks, so indebted, the new Libyan leaders were persuaded by the possibility of a military base on their soil without worrying about the reaction of people and immediate neighbors including Algeria with which their countries sharing nearly a thousand kilometers of borders.''

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''French youths jostle minister after riot overnight''

From EuroNews

''Youths jeered and jostled the French interior minister on Tuesday in the northern city of Amiens, where he met local officials following overnight riots in which police were fired at with buckshot and pelted with missiles.

President Francois Hollande said the state would “mobilise all its resources to combat this violence”, which has shaken depressed quarters of major French cities at regular intervals in the past decade.''

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''Bank of France cuts second-quarter growth forceast to -0.1pc''

From The Telegraph

''The French central bank had previously expected growth to be essentially unchanged in the three months from April through June. If the figures are confirmed it would be the first contraction since France pulled out of recession in 2009.

The French growth outlook will be a blow to new French President Francois Hollande as he continues to battle German Chancellor Angela Merkel over how to resolve the European debt crisis.''

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''France eyes layoffs clampdown as unemployment climbs''

From Reuters

''France's new Socialist government is planning to ramp up the cost of laying off workers for companies in the coming months, its labour minister said on Thursday after data showed the jobless rate hit the highest level this century at 10 percent.

President Francois Hollande rode to power in a presidential runoff last month on a promise to tackle soaring unemployment, which has reached the highest level since 1999.''

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''High earners say au revoir to France''

From The Telegraph

''France's high earners feel increasingly unwelcome in a country now led by a man who has admitted: "I don't like the rich." So where are they looking? London. It comes as no surprise – while Hollande prepares to raise taxes, over here David Cameron is cutting the 50pc tax rate for income above £150,000 to 45pc. "I have already worked in London and lived in South Kensington," said one French banker who expects to return to the UK over the next three months. "The question is how much of Hollande's rhetoric will materialise into policy."

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Pepe Escobar: ''Hollande wants to end dollar era, will clash with US''

From RT.com

''France's Sarkozy headed for election defeat''

From Reuters

''Nicolas Sarkozy was headed for an election defeat on Sunday that could make him the 11th European leader to be swept from office by the economic crisis and crown Francois Hollande as France's first Socialist president in 17 years.''

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Pepe Escobar: ''Off with King Sarko's head''

From Asia Times

''He posed in spectacular grandeur as the neo-imperial Liberator of Libya - only a few years after Colonel Muammar Gaddafi helped finance his 2007 election campaign with a cool US$65 million.

Profiting from a mysterious alliance between the Holy Ghost and an African chambermaid in New York, he got rid of the unstoppable challenger to his re-election, former International Monetary Fund director general and international sex fiend, Dominique Strauss-Khan.

And still, this Sunday, French voters - in a Facebook-style remix of the fall of the Bastille - are bound to yell "Off with his head".

Why? Hubris. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, aka neo-Napoleonic King Sarko, former king of bling bling, "Chouchou" to [Italian] First Lady Carla Bruni, may be his own worst enemy.''

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''France faces 40pc house price slump''

From The Telegraph

"France faces a property slump of Anglo-Saxon proportions as the frothiest boom in French history finally tips over, threatening the country with an economic shock just as austerity hits."

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''France sees little on the horizon apart from the gloom''

From The Guardian

"French people of very different ages and backgrounds have been writing in with their views of the state of their country and what they feel these elections will – or will not – accomplish. The overriding note, I have to say, is one of pessimism; many seem to feel France's economic problems are being seriously underestimated, and are in any case not being addressed by either of the two remaining candidates in the presidential race."

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