In the follow-up to the Experts segment on Friday, March 21, Roland Gillet, François Ecalle, and Philippe Mutricy discuss the abyssal French debt and the risks that accompany it.

Before considering the catastrophic scenario of a default by an EU member state, Roland Gillet reminds us that if the European Central Bank no longer contemplates a quantitative easing mechanism (the ECB purchasing financial assets, including government bonds, to inject money into the economy and stimulate growth), it will be the financial markets that will be called upon to finance the increases in state debt. Interest rates will be determined by the forces of supply and demand in a context that remains uncertain, thereby justifying a premium on returns.

"A difference in rates between member states, such as the Netherlands and France or potentially Italy in the future, will lead to tensions within the Eurozone, with all the complications that entails."

Roland Gillet emphasizes that the Germans are willing to make efforts provided that expenditures are carried out with a certain level of orthodoxy, and that their flexibility does not allow member states that need to improve to abandon all rigor.

Watch the second part of the show The Experts: "Is a debt crisis inevitable ?"