And now comes the hard part. Centrist newcomer Emmanuel Macron trounced far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s vote for president of France. The political and business leaders of France and the European Union certainly breathed a sigh of relief. Le Pen had threatened to pull France out of the euro. But the euro and European financial markets are generally lower today.
Thanks to really terrible economic numbers out of France and Italy it was easy for troubles at one Portuguese bank to revive fears about slumping economic growth for pretty much every EuroZone country outside of Germany. For France industrial output fell 1.7% in May from April. In Italy industrial output dropped 1.2%
This morning’s EuroZone news is focused on the terrible economic news from Portugal—but, frankly, I’m much more worried by the steady flow of bad news from France. France’s national auditor warned yesterday that the country is likely to miss its deficit target for 2013
