Protests have spread across Europe as Greece, Italy and Spain are struggling to hold on to the euro. Meanwhile, residents of the strongest European economies, such as France, believe that their countries would be better off with a national currency.
A million to march against the harsh new austerity package, vows Italy's biggest trade union. Italy is teetering on the brink of collapse over its massive debts. The troubles of one of Europe's biggest economies threaten to destabilize the eurozone and spur a new financial crisis.The removal of several controversial provisions, such as a temporary tax on the wealthy, sent markets into a spin, and sparked rumors of an imminent credit-rating downgrade.Meanwhile across the Ionian Sea, efforts to rescue the Greek economy took a hit after Athens admitted it will not be able to meet deficit reduction deadlines.Struggling economies will have to leave the eurozone, an ex-member of France's ruling party, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, told RT. There are consequences for a currency system that cannot work.Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, says that some countries, like Greece, will have to leave the eurozone, because they simply cannot keep up with economically stable countries. “Greece cannot support the currency of Germany, it is not the same economy,” he declared. “Greece will be forced to leave [the] euro because the only means for Greece’s economy to recover is to devaluate.”Dupont-Aignan says that the euro is too expensive for Greece: “You cannot have the same currency for Greece, with productivity which is not high, and for Germany.”Even though France is not in the same situation as Greece or Italy, there is a high unemployment rate, and the French are becoming more and more dissatisfied with the current situation. Some believe that France should abandon the eurozone and revert to its own currency – the Franc.“Government is saying to French people, ‘We will impose new taxes, but in the same day we are going to give to Greece 15 billion euros.’ We ask for the money from the French people to give it to Greece and it’s not working. So the French government is very unpopular,” says Dupont-Aignan. Nevertheless, President Sarkozy's government is insistent that France's future lies with the euro. Nicolas Dupont-Aignan argues that this is a bad decision.“We created Europe without the euro and it worked. It worked because when we had a problem we could devaluate and Germany re-evaluate its currency [after WWII.]. But now we cannot use money to ‘re-arm,’” he says. “People in Europe began just to understand that [the] euro is not working. You cannot have the same currency for countries [that] are completely different on the economic scale.”“We are in a historic moment – [the] eurozone is exploding,” concluded Dupont-Aignan.
German economic analyst Michael Mross, believes it is those very deadlines and cuts that will be the euro's undoing“Austerity means cuts. That means that you have cut the income of the poorest, that the social welfare will be cut down. What we see here is that politicians are promising many things and this is the problem that we really have,” he said. “People in Brussels also feel the pressure of the street will be so big that they cannot fulfil their promises. That means that in the end of the day the whole experiment of the euro will go down with the insolvency of Germany.”