French push euro countries to confront ECB By Katrin Bennhold and Carter Dougherty Tuesday, July 17, 2007 Click here to find out more!
According to central bankers and finance officials, the drive is seen mainly as an effort to bolster the ailing French export industry.
[WS:] This seems to be consistent with an interesting phenomenon in Europe, which for the lack of better terminology I call right-wing populist Keynesianism. It denotes policies of essentially conservative parties of mobilizing popular support by espousing socially conservative issues (nationalism, religion, etc.), pursuing protectionist economic policies, and increasing social spending (in a similar manner, social spending in the US rose to the record high under Bush - 16.2% of the GDP in 2003, compared to 14.6% in 2000 - the last year of the Clinton administration.) At the same time, the left-leaning parties flirt with neo-liberalism.
Wojtek