According to former French prime minister François Fillon, François Hollande's "clumsy" attacks on Angela Merkel and lack of action on economic reforms are damaging French relations with Germany and threatening the wider eurozone economy.
Mr Fillon, campaigning to succeed Nicolas Sarkozy at the head of the opposition centre-right UMP party, also warned that failure to take measures to boost the stalled French economy risked exposing France to punishment by financial markets.
He sharply criticised President Hollande’s move to distance himself from the previous close relationship forged by Mr Sarkozy and Ms Merkel. The socialist president has made thinly-veiled attacks on the eurozone policies of the chancellor – who strongly backed Mr Sarkozy in this year’s presidential election – and has fostered close ties with her social democratic opponents in next year’s German elections.
“Hollande’s attitude towards Ms Merkel is really very clumsy”, Mr Fillon said in an interview with the Financial Times. “He doesn’t cease playing on her electoral defeat. He acts as if she is already defeated. He thinks he is attacking Ms Merkel but Germans take it as an attack on Germany as a whole.”
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