French, German rifts show already

Los Angeles Times.

PARIS — Exuberant supporters were still out celebrating Francois Hollande's election as president of France when the first fissures began opening up in the Franco-German motor that drives the rest of Europe.

Although officials on both sides of the Rhine vowed to continue their close political cooperation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a blunt rejection Monday of Hollande's pledge to renegotiate a Europe-wide fiscal treaty to rein in public debt.

Nor would she countenance deficit spending to boost the economic growth that Europe so desperately needs, pouring cold water on another of Hollande's campaign promises. Growth could come only through "structural reforms," the conservative Merkel said.

It was an awkward start for the European Union's newest but most important power couple, the leaders of its two biggest economies and political heavyweights, who together hold the key to how the continent deals with its dire debt crisis. The global economy now depends in major part on what results from the collision between rigid German insistence on fiscal rectitude and the wave of anti-austerity anger sweeping through Europe, with left-leaning Socialist Hollande riding its crest.

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