That was just twelve years ago. Swept up in a financial turmoil not seen since 1929, Europe lived a daily ordeal, suspended by the sentences of the rating agencies. A slight doubt, a tiny reserve of these new oracles on the accounts of a country was enough to send it to the carpet. Indebted to the neck, Greece, Spain, Portugal experienced a descent into hell from which they emerged, bloodless, only at the price of a ruthless regime of austerity. Others, including the France, were forced to overpay their creditors in delusional proportions to obtain credit. We know the end of the story: the euro zone owed its salvation only to an extraordinary intervention by the ECB. This lightning rod, with which we have lived ever since, is gradually disappearing.
" READ ALSO Debt: the France under the threat of a further downgrade of its rating
Let's be reasonable: the possible downgrading of the France by Standard & Poor's is unlikely to trigger a new financial tsunami in the immediate future. But later? It is perilous...
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