The Duran Podcast - France in BIG TROUBLE. Possible IMF/EU bailout

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

France in BIG TROUBLE. Possible IMF/EU bailout

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the collapsing economies of France and of Germany. A couple of days ago, we talked about the collapsing economy of the UK. Well, we now have Germany in big trouble. And we now have France in big trouble. The rumors are that the UK is possibly going to seek some sort of a bailout from the IMF. I don't know how possible that is. And the rumors are that France may do the same. The German economy is in a bit of a different situation, but we'll get to all of that.

So let's begin with France. There's going to be a vote on the budget, I believe September. I want to say September 9th or September 6th. And the outlook is that Bayru, the Prime Minister of France, is not going to get the approval that he needs. And that will trigger either. snap elections, or perhaps Macron may opt to nominate a different person for the role of Prime Minister. We'll see when the vote actually takes place. But it looks like Baeru does not have the support of the socialists or of the national rally. So anyway, what are your thoughts

with France? And then we'll transition to Germany. We'll talk about what's going on in Germany. We did a program about the situation in Britain, and we spoke about how bound the situation in Britain is. and it's as bad, though in a somewhat different way in France also. Now, you said that there's rumours about France might also, having also perhaps to seek a bailout and make an application to the IMF. We can't call them rumours because they have been confirmed by no lesser person than France's finance minister, Eric Lombard. He actually said that if the budget isn't passed, and I believe the day is the 8th of September, if it isn't passed, then the government obviously will have to resign because the government has made this an issue of confidence and that might create a crisis in the bond markets and that might lead France to apply for a loan to the IMF.

Now, this could be scare talk, but it's a pretty extraordinary thing for the finance minister of a country to do, to actually talk in this way to cast down on the credit rating, the credit stability of his own country. And that perhaps tells us a lot about the overall situation in France. Now, France is similar to Britain, but different. France has a higher debt to GDP ratio than Britain does. In Britain, I believe it's actually around 94%. Debt to GDP ratio is around 94%. In France, it's 114%. So it's bigger. France's budget deficit is bigger as well. I mean, significantly bigger than in Britain. In France, the welfare budget is in some respects even further out of control than in Britain's, in the sense that if we're talking about social spending, in Britain, pension spending, which is perhaps the biggest single item

in a social welfare budget. In Britain, it's about 5% of GDP. I believe in France it's around 11%. So, you know, it's significantly bigger. And also, France has all kinds of protections that there exist in France. It's got a more regulated economy than Britons does. Against that, the word that I've heard is that France has more savings. This is a country where there is a larger pool of private savings, which could in theory be drawn upon. Which explains, by the way, why are.

to now, there's not been any particular difficulty in selling French government bonds. France is of course, it's also got a significant industrial base. I'm not sure that it's necessarily bigger than Britons, but it's more competitive and more visible than export markets. I mean, we've all know about Airbus, for example, which is based mostly in France. as its own motor industry and all kinds of things like that. So, I mean, it's got a stronger, more competitive manufacturing industry and a perhaps somewhat stronger technology base. But perhaps, and most importantly, the biggest difference of all,

is that France is in the Eurozone and Britain is not. Now, what that means is that if there is a crisis, a solvency crisis, crisis in France, it is a solvency crisis for the Eurozone. If there is a solvency crisis in Britain, it is a crisis specifically in Britain. Now, that has both advantages and disadvantages in each case. But what it means in practical terms for France is that, of course, Because if France suffers a major crisis in the financial markets, which is certainly possible, because everybody agrees, just as they do about Britain, that the present trajectory is an unsustainable one, that France cannot continue to spend in the way that it does.

Its economy is as stagnant as Britain's is. Growth, I should just quite add, add in France, has been even lower over the way that it does. the last couple of years than it has been in Britain. If there is a financial crisis in France, inevitably it's going to affect the entire Eurozone as well. And if there is a bailout, inevitably that means that the European institutions are going to have to be involved, the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and ultimately the paymasters of these two institutions, who are the Germans. So that is, it's going to feed into the entire European crisis, which is also a developing one too. Now, I am not sure I know less about the situation

in France than I know about the situation in Britain. I am not sure that we are quite as close to crisis in France as perhaps we are in Britain. But let's just look at the politics of this because what usually happens with crisis in the bond markets is that there also has to be a loss of confidence in government. We're starting to see that in Britain, where Starmers, government, its authorities, credibility is draining away. But let's talk about France. Byruth is probably going to lose the votes in the French Parliament on the 8th of September. This is an unacceptable budget for the national rally. It is an unacceptable budget for the left. Macron has been trying to peel parts of the

left away from Jean-Luc Melanchon, who is the hard-lined leftist, who put together this coalition during the last French parliamentary elections that happened last year, which Macron prematurely called. he's been trying, as we've discussed in earlier programs, to peel away some support, to cobble together a coalition with his party in the centre. This has worked up to a certain point, but the budget that Bayru has been forced to propose is so tough, so draconian in the cuts it envisages that it looks as if that support is now gravitating back. to Melanchon. So it looks as if the Bayru government is going to lose the vote on the 8th of September. They made it an issue of confidence. They have to resign. If they resign, France is without a government.

It seems impossible that any government that replaces Byruz can come forward with a budget like Bayru's and succeed where Byru failed. Remember, Macron himself as president has only a year to go. He can't continue beyond, I think it's March 27, 27. A year and a half to go. So he's now coming to the end of his term anyway. He's going to have trouble finding a new prime minister. his attempts at coalition building of the parliament had been unsuccessful. There's been talk of snap elections, but the opinion polls suggested if there are snap elections, this time the national rally, Marine Le Pen's party, would win probably an outright majority. And Macron probably doesn't want that.

He's been resisting up to now proposals to call elections. So that leaves two options. Option one, he steps down and there are presidential elections. In France, he's floated that possibility himself in the past. He did that after the previous parliamentary elections. I think his vanity makes it unlikely that he will do that. The other option is that he will declare a state of emergency, exercise his powers of. as president, appoint a prime minister and try to govern by decree. And apparently the constitution of the Fifth Republic, the French Republic, allows him to do that up to a certain point. Now, if he does that, if we move towards emergency presidential rule, then I can see how that might create a collapse of confidence and lead to a crisis in the bond markets. So we are in a very precarious situation in France and if these sort of things begin to happen,

then we could start to see this translate into a bigger crisis in the Eurozone with the financial institutions there, the European Central Bank, the European Commission, the German government all being drawn in. and, well, we can discuss the implications of that in a moment. Yeah, we should discuss what it means for Germany to bail out France. I mean, when you talk about the EU bailing out France, I mean, you are talking about Germany. Coming to France's rescue, I don't think Germany can do it. I mean, you know, we're not talking about Greece or Cyprus here.

No. I'm talking about France. It's just too big. Yes. Yes. Even for Germany, just way too big. And Germany's not in such a good condition right now to bail out France. But, you know, Macron, it sounds like his best option if he was looking at France's best interests.

His best option appears to be to step down and to call elections. Yeah, absolutely. That's where we are as far as France's best interests are concerned. Unequivocally, unequivocally, he's deeply unpopular. He came in on a reform program, which has failed. I mean, his whole program has failed. He's a failure. He's a complete failure.

He's a complete failure. He's a failure of a president, of everything. He's a complete failure. He stands down. He calls elections. More likely than not, the victor would be whoever is put forward by the national rally. that person, I mean, logically it ought to be Le Pen, but we all know that there's these legal problems that Macron and his associates and the state council have put in her way.

But whoever it is, whoever is then elected, president of France, because the national rally is currently the most popular party, would then call parliamentary elections. elections would result in a parliamentary victory for the national rally, we would then have a stable government. And that might, by the way, overt the kind of debt crisis that we are talking about. I want to say something again, before we talk about Germany, because I think this is important to understand these problems in France, just like the problems in Britain, these problems in France are solvable. One of the reasons, why debt to GDP ratios in France have got so far out of control, despite the fact that France has,

in some respects, an advanced and competitive economy is obviously, there's all this feather bedding that we've been talking about, the social welfare and all this, but because growth in France has been so low. Why has growth in France been so low? We come back to the, we come back to the the ultimate explanation, the Euro and the Euro system. If France was able to run its monetary policy for itself, we would have had a depreciation of the franc. That would have played to the competitive advantages of the French economy. Growth to France would return. There would be higher growth that would probably bring the debt situation back under control. And, these problems would start to be solved. France in that case might also be able to start taking

steps which could tap into these very large reserves of wealth which exist in France. The reason why we have low growth right across the entire Eurozone in Italy as many of the same problems is because the Euro is making these economies increasingly uncompetitive and is making it very, very difficult for them to grow. That is the underlying cause of all of these problems. You pile up all sorts of other crazy things, economic wars against Russia, for example. We've talked about that at length, but the underlying problem is the Euro system. So who potentially would be best place to address all of this, ultimately, the next. national rally. I mean, they seem to me much more, much closer to addressing the underlying problems

of France. So, yes, going back to your question, the best thing for France would be if Macron stepped down. The second best thing for France is if Macron called parliamentary elections are the national rally won, and we had a period of cohabitation, in which case there would be a new Prime Minister from the National Rally. He or she would take charge of the many problems in France. Probably we would then have presidential elections in 2027, and we might end up with something like the same kind of situation. The worst possible outcome would be one where Macron decided or chose to govern by decree.

I have to say, given the psychology of the man, given the kind of counsel he's going to get, the support he's going to get from within the French establishment and the European elite, that unfortunately remains the most likely outcome. At least that's how it looks to me. Maybe people in France can explain to us otherwise. Well, I mean, he can try to find another prime minister. Yeah. But he's just going to run into the same problem with three months out. Exactly. Right? So, I mean, he needs a year and a half. That's what he needs so he can get to finish out his term and get to elections.

But he's not going to be able to get there by trying to find another prime minister. No. He may give that a shot, though. I mean, he may give that a go come September. I mean, that may be the option that he tries for. But all that's going to do is in three months, we're going to be doing another video about France collapsing again, right? Well, exactly.

And, of course, the more that goes on, the more the credibility drains away. And all of these underlying problems starts to boil and lead to a potential crisis. Now, you see, the thing about macro, the thing about macro, the thing. to understand about Macron is he long ago gave up any plan to carry out the kind of neoliberal reform agenda that he wanted. I mean, he's done quite a lot of that, but it's never achieved the results he aimed for. And, you know, he no longer thinks of those terms. He does think a lot about securing his legacy by sending French troops to Ukraine and the leading a European crusade against Russia and all of that. We've talked about that in other programs. But he's

major priority now and the source of the current crisis is that he and the French political establishment have one priority which is to prevent the national rally gaining power in France. They've tried to stop them at Le Pen. They've used lawfare against us. We've distrust this in previous programs. I accept she's probably guilty of the crimes that she's been accused of. So are lots of French politicians. The point is she was singled out because she's Marine Le Pen. That's the reason it was done. So they're trying to stop the national rally and Marine Le Pen gaining control of the French government, winning democratically.

And I think this is an important thing to say, winning democratically power in France. And what they want is to use the time between now and the presidential election in 27 to shape the political landscape in France, to come up with a successor to Macron who can defeat Le Pen or whoever else is put up by the national rally in the elections and become the president of France. In other words, to perpetuate the euro system. We've seen this play out in country after country after country. What it's doing is it's creating an ever deeper crisis in France, because these problems are accumulating. And France is increasingly looking ungovernable. And the crisis gets worse and worse. The problem is, I don't think Macron and the people, as I said, who are his ultimate supporters, have changed their perspective.

I think they remain as determined to stop the national rally winning as ever. And they're prepared to risk a crisis in France to prevent it, which is why I very much fear that he will go down the road of trying to govern France by decree. Yeah, because it's not about the best interest of France when it comes to Macron. He's a globalist, and the best interests are for the globalists. It's for the EU project, for the euro. Where there's that fear, that national rally will actually look after the best interest of France and may address not only the euro problem, the currency, the euro problem, they may actually also address the EU problem because with the Euro, you also have to address the

problem of these people, these technocrats in Brussels, governing over your country, telling your country what to do, placing laws and regulations and all kinds of things like this, which slow down the growth of your country. These are the people that are slowing down the growth because of their policy and their regulations, as well as their obsession with Russia and the sanctions and all of these things. So you have the financial part, which is the euro, which destroys member states, coupled with the actual Brussels elite, the political side of things, which also destroys your member state, EU member state.

So, I mean, we don't even know if national rally is going to go there. I mean, Le Pen may actually end up being a bust like Maloney. Yeah. You know, Maloney was a complete disaster. When it came to addressing these things, she didn't address them at all. She folded to Ursula's demands and Ursula's wings. So, I mean, we don't know what national rally in Le Pen may do, but it's that fear that they just might question the power of Brussels and just might question the Euro financial system. And so, Macron's Ukraine and all of that.

Yeah, which is destroying EU member states. Yes. I mean, the EU member states are going down one by one. They're completely being destroyed from all of this. You know, Macron's going to do everything in his power to protect the system. Exactly. Not France. Exactly.

To protect the system. Yes. And Mertz is going to do the same. He's Black Rock Mertz for a reason. They call him Black Rock. We call him Black Rock Mertz for a reason. He's going to do everything in his power to protect the system. And my guess, my fear, my guess would be that he will jeopardize Germany's well-being in order to figure out a way to bail out France, not because he wants to bail out France, but because they're going to do everything in their power to preserve the globalist EU system at the expense of the citizens of the EU and the member states of the EU.

I mean, they don't care about the member states. They don't care about the member states. They care about the system. I know. Absolutely. Now, let's just talk about this because just to go back briefly to our previous program, which was about Britain, a number of people have absolutely correctly pointed out that the IMF doesn't have the financial resources to bail out Britain if we ever get into that kind of scenario.

What people who say that overlook is that behind the IMF, is the US Treasury. If there is a question of a bailout of Britain, ultimately it would have to be negotiated between Britain and the United States. Now, that is an enormous thing, and I touched on that in one of my programs, it would mean that Britain would have to be bailed out

by Donald Trump and Scott Besson, and one wonders whether they would want to, and certainly it would not be popular in Britain. But it would it be popular in the United States? It would not be popular in the United States either. But that is the backstop there. Now, the backstop in Europe, we're talking about France, is Germany. Germany's backstopped everything.

I mean, it's been the country that was at the core of all the bailouts back in 2018. 11, 28, 12, the ones you, 2013 in Cyprus that we went through. And it was Germany who basically dictated the outcome. Germany was a far stronger economic and financial position then than it is today. Today, we're looking at not 60% debt to GDP ratio. It's actually deteriorating fast because, of course, Merz has already. abolished the debt break. He's spending money on what he calls infrastructure. He's spending money on rearmament. He's giving 9 billion euros a year to Ukraine. I mean, incredible sums that he's spending. I've read whole pieces about how that none of this money has been

spent on anything that is going to raise productivity growth in Germany. The The infrastructure spending is likely to disappear in corruption, of which, by the way, there is quite a lot in Germany, contrary to what many people believe. I read the German military industries simply lack the capacity to rearm on the scale that Mertz is demanding of them. So what that's going to do is create inflation cries problems within the German industrial system and is also inevitably going to bleed into imports of weapons from the United States. Merz's policies anyway are going to result in higher imports into Germany because all this

spending has to be absorbed some way and it's going to be absorbed eventually through imports. If you run big budget deficits, you're pouring money into the economy. if your industry can't absorb all that money, the only way to do so is through imports. And that's what's going to happen to Germany. So Germany is in a very, very poor position to bail out France. And France is big. And we're talking about a G7 economy here. So this is not like bailing out Greece or even, dare I say, Italy or Spain, which could accept some damage.

Debt to GDP dynamics in France are very, very bad. Growth, as we know, seen is very low. I don't think that Germany can do this. So this is what I think will happen. Firstly, you're absolutely like, Mertz is not going to walk away from this. He's not going to want to compromise on his great project of rearmament and infrastructure spending in Germany. He's going to want, however, to bail out France. So how is he going to do it?

There's one obvious answer, Eurobonds. So he's going to float Eurobonds. He's going to accept the longstanding Euro demand, European Commission demand for Eurobonds, and he's going to get the European Central Bank to buy them. He's going to get them debt monetized, in other words. Now, that will ultimately undermine the entire. stability of the euro system, because the euro, unlike the dollar, is not a global reserve currency.

In fact, it's been declining. It's being used less and less in global settlements. But that I think is what maths is likely to do. That's going to wreck the entire EU. Yes. Yes. Bear in mind, if France... But it will consolidate a lot.

A lot of power into the center. Exactly. And a lot of control. Exactly. Bear in mind, of course, the other thing to say is, if France has this kind of crisis and there's a bond crisis in France, they will want to move very fast. Because if they don't, there is the massive risk of contagion. Debt dynamics and growth problems in Italy are almost as bad as they are in France.

They're worse in some ways. I mean, debt to GDP ratio in Italy is very bad. The budget situation is less bad. But anyway, we can talk about all these data. But if they can't sort out France quickly, then inevitably, the financial markets are going to start worrying about other EU countries, Italy, obvious one, and the other South European countries as well. And of course, at that point, there could be a situation where the debt crisis becomes unlawful

manageable. So they will want to move to sort out the problems in France fast and they will do it through Euro bonds and they will get the ECB to buy them, which of course goes against its charter, by the way, but then buying bonds, buying government bonds has always been against the central banks charter. And Draghi, of course, Mario Draghi, as ECB chairman, with Germany's permission, with Angela Merkel's position, did it. So they will do it again. Yeah. And Draghi is calling for a united Europe, a one government EU.

I mean, he's calling for that. Yes. That will wreck Germany as well. Absolutely. What did the whole Eurobond thing? I mean, they've already kind of done away with the debt break and all of that. Absolutely. Once you get the Eurobonds going, and all the debt is done.

now shared between the EU member states. Yes. That's lights out for Germany. It's lights out for Finland, for the Netherlands, for all the countries that have been resisting this. Yes. It's game over for them. Exactly.

I mean, actually for the southern European countries, they've been pushing for this. Countries like Greece and other countries in southern Europe, they've been wanting to share the debt burden. Yes. Of course. It's not difficult to understand why. Exactly. But, I mean, you know, the Germans were very, very, very.

good, sensible reasons have resisted it. I mean, Germany, as we used to know it, is disappearing fast. And what's left of that old Germany that we used to know, you know, the Germany that saved money, had, you know, the financial system that was basically geared to supporting businesses, including family businesses and the industrial firms, the export machine and all of that. That Germany, if this happens, is dead. You can forget about it. I mean, within just a very few years, it will be completely gone.

Yeah. All of this is planned, Alexander. All of this is planned. Maybe it's not how they wanted all of this to unfold. But all roads lead to a united states of Europe. That's what we're looking at. A United States of Europe with a fraction of the power, the cohesiveness, the influence, the stability of the United States of America.

I mean, it is going to be a Frankenstein, a Frankenstein monster of a thing. Yes, it is. That's exactly what it will be. But I mean, saying about it being planned. Jean Monnet, who was, by the way, French, and a very, very brilliant French technocrat, by the way. And by no means a bad man. I mean, he's a complicated person, but he was one of the creators of the European economic community. And he famously once said that, you know, European integration needs periodic crises.

because these crises are the way you overcome each crisis that you yourself create by pushing more Europe, by pushing the process of integration further and further. I know I've started Monnet very, very well. He was a brilliant industrial planner and all those sort of things. I don't believe he personally would have wanted to see Europe go the way. it has, I think that he envisaged a very different Europe from the one we have. I don't want to get into the details of all of this because this is not that sort of a program. But what I would say is when you say that this is planned, you could see that this is a twisted, corrupted version of what Monet was talking about way back in the 60s.

Yeah. Well, how can you envision Ursula van der Leyen running a European? Well, exactly. That's tough to. Well, I mean, you know, the difference between Jean Monnet and Ursula von der Leyen is like, I mean, it's like, well, I'm not even going to try. I mean, the difference is so enormous that, I mean, whatever. Yeah. Well, what do you make to wrap up the video of the articles in German media, which claim that that Mert is building an infrastructure railway transport system for military purposes in order. to get about 800,000 troops closer to the borders with Russia for some sort of future attack.

There's been talking of this, by the way, for as long as I can remember. I remember discussions about the need to sort out Germany's infrastructure to move troops around fast. They could have done this in the 30s. Of course, they did do this in the 30s under a rather different government when they built all the autobans. They're not going to be able to do it today because Germany doesn't do information. very well, by the way. I mean, that's one thing which people don't perhaps quite understand. What this is all about, and this is where we get back to, you know, Mr. Black Rock and all that, this is corruption. It's going to move money around the system. Anybody who knows anything

about the world of construction knows how, unless it is managed very efficiently by people who really know what they're doing in a proper competitive environment. It lends itself to corruption. And what all of these people are going to be seeing across Germany who do this sort of thing, there'll be cement manufacturers, the asphalt makers, all of those people. Many of them, by the way, not even German, they're based outside. What they will see is the man coming along with the deep pockets and willing to write out the big checks. And they will be rubbing their hands with delight.

And they will be saying, here's the fool coming to be. parted with his money because that is exactly what is going to happen. And given that we're talking about Mr. Black Rock, I wouldn't be surprised if at some, at a certain level of his own consciousness, this is probably what he wants because of course, this is, you know, the kind of financialization of Germany that we'd be talking about. Absolutely. That's definitely what he wants. Yeah.

And he uses the specter of Russia and gruesophobia to. get to this point. Black Rock merch. All right, we will end it there. Durand.locals.com. We are on Rumble and Odyssey, Telegram and X, and go to Durant Shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. There's a link in the description box down below.

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