(by Massimiliano D'Elia) Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is flying to Brussels to meet the President of the European Commission Jean Claude Junker and propose a revised economic maneuver, however far from the wishes of the commissioners. Many newspapers today emphasized the fact that Macron's request to exceed the deficit / GDP ratio by more than 3 percent, could somehow help the Italian request to go beyond the 1,8 percent expected, or to be able to reach 2,4 , 3 percent, necessary to implement the measures most awaited by the yellow-green electorate. Little does a cold shower. The European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, interviewed by Parisien, believes that a possible overshoot of more than XNUMX% of the ratio between deficit and GDP, after the announcement of the measures of President Emmanuel Macron to dampen the anger of the yellow vests “Can be taken into consideration”, even if in a “limited, temporary and exceptional” way.
For Moscovici, the situation in France cannot be compared to that of Italy. When asked by Le Parisien about a favorable treatment for France over Italy on public accounts Moscovici strongly denies. "There is no indulgence, they are our rules, only our rules", insists the commissioner, adding: "Above all, we do not act as if there was excessive severity on one side and I do not know what laxity on the other". For him the comparison with Italy "is tempting but wrong because they are two totally different situations". "The European Commission has been monitoring the Italian debt for many years", something it has "never done" for France.
The fact that Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, "French", justifies and supports Macron's requests, arguing with the recent "violent" unrest in the square of the yellow vests is not acceptable. Does this mean that the square can, in a certain sense, justify the policies and discretion of the EU Commission? When the Commission and Ecofin analyzed the Italian economic maneuver, they always referred to the rules and agreements that provide for Italy not to go beyond 1,8 per cent in the deficit / GDP ratio. Does this mean that the Italian yellow vests must take to the streets? Absurd!
The truth is that France is the most financially exposed country in Europe and nobody says it
Il Sole24Ore writes that in the ranking of the public debt in relation to GDP (which in Italy makes 130%, in France and US 100%, and in the average of the 90% Eurozone), Italy has long emerged as one of the most lever "of the planet. But if you widen your gaze to the aggregate debt, ie the levels of indebtedness of all economic actors (state, companies, banks and families) Italy proves to be an average country, without major debt problems.
Still following this ranking - which at the moment is not part of the grids with which the European Union judges the work of its members - it turns out that it is the France the most financially exposed country; the country that resorting to debt is living today more than anyone with the means of tomorrow. True, the public debt in relation to GDP is more contained than in Italy but if we add the exposure of the companies (about 160% of GDP), banks (90%) and families (60%) comes out the France system travels with enormous leverage, which exceeds 400% of GDP, equal to 9 thousand billion of accumulated debts. Italy, adding all the economic actors, is slightly higher than 350% compared to 270% of Germany.
Not to mention the CFA French currency imposed on the former 14 colonies in Africa
Italy Today writes that the pivot around which the entire system of French control over the 14 African countries revolves is the colonial franc, called the CFA franc, a currency that France imposed on its colonies in 1945, immediately after the Bretton Woods agreement, which regulated the monetary system after the Second World War. Originally the acronym CFA stood for "French colonies of Africa", but in the XNUMXs, following the recognition of the independence of the French colonies decided by Charles De Gaulle, its meaning changed: "African financial community".
A purely formal recognition of the end of the colonial regime, as the CFA franc has kept all the iron and jugular ties it had on local economies from the beginning. We are talking about 14 states of the sub-Saharan area and Central Africa, with a population of about 160 million units, for which the official currency is the CFA franc, minted and printed in France, a country that has established all its characteristics and it holds the monopoly. Here is their list: Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
The first constraint of the CFA franc is the obligation for 14 countries that use it to deposit 50% of their monetary reserves with the French Treasury. In practice, when one of the 14 countries of the CFA franc exports to a country other than France, and collects dollars or euros, it is obliged to transfer 50% of this collection to the Bank of France. Originally the share to be transferred to France was equal to 100% of the collection, then it fell to 65% (reform of 1973, after the end of the colonies), finally to 50% from 2005. Thus, for example, if Cameroon, after expressly authorized by France, exports packaged clothes to the United States worth 50 thousand dollars, must transfer 25 thousand to the French Central Bank. A system that does not miss a penny, as the monetary agreements on the CFA franc provide that there are representatives of the French State, with a right of veto, both in the boards of directors and in those of the financial institutions of the former 14 colonies .
Thanks to this transfer of monetary wealth, France handles 50% of the foreign currencies of the former 14 ex-colonies at will. investing them heavily in government bonds issued by their Treasury, thanks to which it has been able to finance for decades a generous public spending, often unaware of the constraints of Maastricht. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has asked the various French governments to deposit 50% of the reserves of the 14 former colonies with the ECB, instead of with the French Central Bank, the answer has always been a firm no.
Among the numerous constraints imposed by the agreements on the Franco CFA, there is also the "first right" for France to buy any natural resource discovered in its former colonies. Hence the control of Paris on raw materials of enormous strategic value: uranium, gold, oil, gas, coffee, cocoa. Only after an explicit "non-French interest" is the permission to look for another buyer. But beware: the major economic assets of all the former 14 colonies are in the hands of French who have settled for some time in Africa, becoming billionaires on the palate (above all, Vincent Bolloré and Martin Bouygues).
From this widespread poverty the origin of the migratory waves towards Europe. When Gaddafi wanted to coin the African dinar to be replaced with the French CFA, Sarkosy did everything to attack Libya and depose, "kill", the Libyan leader.