If Moody's downgrades France it's Sarkozy's fault, Hollande tells RFI
If Moody’s credit ratings agency gives France a bad rating just after the May presidential election, Socialist candidate François Hollande wants the world to know that it won’t be his fault. The judgement will be on the record of the “outgoing candidate”, Hollande told RFI Monday.
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Appearing confident that he will win the 6 May deciding vote, Hollande told RFI’s Frédéric Rivière that Moody’s, which has warned it may downgrade France, is set to issue a rating shortly after polling day.
But the report, which he told the Journal du Dimanche paper will be issued on 12 May, is a routine measure and not a response to the election, Hollande insists, so it will ascertain French credit-worthiness according to the economy in the state that incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy has left it, according to the Socialist candidate.
With a lead in the opinion polls less than a week to go before the first round of voting,
Hollande pledged to put the country’s accounts in order.
Challenged on his left by Left Front candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he said he would “tell private finance that it should be at the service of the economy and not the economy at the service of finance” and declared that education would be one of his top priorities.
Both Hollande and Sarkozy claimed big turnouts at their final rallies before the first round of voting in Paris on Sunday.
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