From FX Street:
The final reading of European December PMI’s released earlier today made for grim reading for Paris. French manufacturing PMI was revised down to 47 from 47.1, the lowest level since May. The second largest country in the currency bloc saw its reading fall below Greece, where the manufacturing PMI actually picked up last month to 49.6 from 49.2 in November. It also underperformed Italy and Spain, with both nations managing to eke out positive growth with readings above 50 at the end of the year.
The spread between French and German yields has widened in recent weeks and is now at its highest level since August. This contrasts sharply with the spread between Spanish and German and Italian and German yields, which have continued to narrow and are at their lowest levels since 2011.From The Telegraph:
My view:
France is quickly emerging as "the sick man of Europe". Years of socialist recklessness are coming to bear their toxic fruit.
Almost unbelievably, French manufacturing PMI was outperformed by the Greek's, despite the 5 years of recession in Greece.
Should these developments surprise us? I hardly think so.
The French have embraced government policies that can best be described as barking mad.
One of the best summaries of the problems in France can be found here: How stupid do you think we are?
Perhaps Margaret Thatcher summed up the problem with socialism best, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money [to spend]".
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