The French Death Rattle
Moody’s announcement in November that it had downgraded France’s sovereign-credit rating implies that the government's response to calls for a "competitiveness shock" was inadequate. In fact, Moody's negative verdict barely scratches the surface of France’s predicament, which is rooted in the prejudices of its governing elite.
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PARIS – Moody’s announcement in November that it had downgraded France’s sovereign-credit rating by one notch from its AAA rating prompted one blogger to poke fun at rating agencies’ tendency either to get things completely wrong or to recognize suddenly a crisis that had long been staring them in the face. The blogger joked, “If this recognition by a rating agency that France has problems is an example of the first failing, a recovery must have begun; if it is an example of the second failing, the country faces a dire reckoning.”