‘Mr. Europe’ Calls for Greece To Exit Eurozone

Former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1974-81), the architect of the would-be “United States of Europe,” has called for Greece to exit from the Eurozone and claims that the “pressure of speculative circles” is preventing it. His comments were published yesterday in an interview with the French daily Les Echos.

Giscard presents what is otherwise the typical monetarist argument for a Grexit, including the claim that the only way the Greek government can implement its policy is with a weak currency and devaluation so that it can become “competitive.” He says that both he and the German government at the time opposed Greece’s entry to the Eurozone in 2001, but the French government insisted, and this has proved to have been a “mistake,” he tells Les Echos.

“This process of an orderly exit,” Giscard continued, “should and can unfold in a non-conflicting way, in everyone’s mutual interest. It’s what I would call a ‘friendly exit’ [sic, in English], an exit in an amicable spirit….” But it is not being done “because of pressure from speculative circles.” Thus in his own way confirming that it is the derivatives bubble that is at stake.