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When he was elected to the French presidency on May 6, 2012, François Hollande intended "to reorient European policy" away from the hard line on budgetary austerity advocated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
But after a year, the results of his efforts "have failed to live up to his initial hopes,” argues Le Figaro. Not only did “the alliance which he tried to organise with southern countries to counter northern states prove to be ineffective,” but “relations with Berlin have never been so strained.”
The conservative daily notes that —
The voice of France is increasingly inaudible, however, the message about the dangers of excessive austerity has widely been heard, even in Brussels. [...] Perhaps François Hollande’s mistake was to be right too soon.
