Les révélations du Guardian auraient incité la journaliste à stopper sa collaboration avec BFMTV. Le grand retour cathodique de l’ancienne star de TF1 aura tourné court.
Anne Sinclair ne sera pas sur le plateau de BFMTV aux côtés d’Olivier Mazerolle et de Ruth Elkrief, dimanche prochain.
Selon la lettre de L’Expansion: « La décision a été prise d’un commun accord avec les équipes de la chaîne, chacun estimant que l’épouse de DSK ne pouvait plus garder l’objectivité nécessaire pour commenter l’élection présidentielle suite aux récentes révélations du Guardian. L’ex-directeur général du FMI y mettait en cause l’entourage de Nicolas Sarkozy qui se serait servi de l’affaire du Sofitel de New York pour faire échouer sa candidature à l’élection présidentielle. Anne Sinclair devrait être remplacée par Renaud Dély du Nouvel Observateur ou Hervé Gattegno du Point. » Une mauvaise nouvelle pour Anne Sinclair qui se faisait pourtant une joie de collaborer avec la chaîne d’information en continu. Une soirée électorale, pour un journaliste, c’est l’aboutissement de plusieurs mois d’actualité, confiait début avril la directrice éditoriale du Huffington Post français au JDD. Je peux aussi y apporter mon expérience des programmes politiques aux États-Unis, que j’ai beaucoup regardés.” Un temps annoncé comme une potentielle future première dame quand son mari caracolait en tête dans les sondages, c’est donc finalement comme une téléspectatrice presque comme les autres que la journaliste suivra les résultats du second tour ce dimanche.
Invités sur le plateau de tournage de “White House Down”, nos collègues de Filmstarts ont obtenu de Channing Tatum quelques infos sur “Magic Mike 2”.
Avec un Steven Soderbergh sur le point de se retirer (provisoirement ?) du business, Magic Mike 2 se retrouve sans maître d’œuvre. A moins que Channing Tatum, déjà principal inspirateur de Magic Mike, ne se mue en réalisateur ? L’intéressé lui-même évoque cette hypothèse. Extrait de l’entretien :
Filmstarts : Y aura-t-il bien un Magic Mike 2 ? Channing Tatum : “Nous le voulons vraiment, mais Steven Soderbergh souhaite vraiment prendre sa retraite. Nous allons sans aucun doute faire la version à Broadway d’abord […]. Gregory Jacobs [assistant-réalisateur de Soderbergh] peut réaliser le film, ou bien nous pouvons le réaliser, Reid Carolin et moi. Mais nous n’en savons rien.“
Egalement croisé sur le set de White House Down, le Reid Carolin en question, co-scénariste de Magic Mike et associé de Tatum au sein d’Iron Horse Entertainment, ajoute tout de même que les deux hommes tenteront de convaincre Steven Soderbergh de rempiler, même si cela s’annonce difficile. « Nous avons une histoire, et c’est réellement marrant et ridicule. C’est une sorte de road movie, dans lequel une bande de strip-teasers se retrouvent. […] Je ne sais pas encore si cela va se faire ou non. »
Dans toute histoire, il faut une péripétie, une rupture. Gustave Kervern, Benoît Delépine ont aujourd’hui troublé le fleuve tranquille cannois.
Leur cinquième film est une ode à la punk attitude. Gustave Kervern et Benoît Delépine ne pouvaient pas arriver, bien sages, sur la Croisette, et l’emporter au paradis. Il fallait faire un coup…Les réalisateurs du Grand Soir en ont fait plusieurs.
Au lieu de poser sagement au photocall du palais des Festivals, les réalisateurs et leurs acteurs, Benoît Poelvoorde et Albert Dupontel ont détruit le comptoir qui sert de décor aux photographes.
Ensuite un happening
A l’issue de la projection, les stars du jour ont promis un strip-tease en échange d’une ovation de plus de six minutes. Histoire de battre un record. Une vidéo en notre possession montre d’ailleurs un Gustave Kervern qui n’hésite pas à dévoiler ses formes avantageuses au vu de l’hystérie que provoque sa présence…
Enfin, un gimmick
A défaut d’avoir trouvé un slogan, ou une cause, Kerven s’est choisi pour mission de faire des doigts d’honneur à tout va. Devant Brad Pitt le jour, derrière Alec Baldwin, le soir… Pas joli joli tout ça!
Et surtout, la transgression
Un smoking pour monter les marches? Très peu pour Albert Dupontel qui, dans le film, joue un jeune homme bien rangé qui part en vrille et rejoint son rebelle de frère dans la contestation. Pour Dupontel, la contestation du soir consistait à arborer un simple tee-shirt sur tapis rouge.
Après cette journée choc, on risque de s’ennuyer sec sur la Croisette inondée…
Nous vous annoncions en mai dernier qu’Uggie, le chien du long métrage de Michel Hazanavicius “The artist” allait publier ses mémoires, découvrez, à un mois de la sortie du livre, une vidéo présentant la fameuse biographie.
Nous vous annoncions en mai dernier qu’Uggie, le chien du long métrage de Michel Hazanavicius The Artist, “allait publier ses mémoires”. Découvrez, à un mois de la sortie du livre, une vidéo présentant la fameuse biographie. Rédigé par Wendy Holdena, l’ouvrage retrace la “carrière” du chien et parle de son amour pour l’actrice Reese Witherspoon, avec laquelle il a tourné dans De l’eau pour les éléphants. On vous laisser juger…
Après avoir créé une nouvelle fois la polémique en assimilant Marine Le Pen à Hitler lors d’un concert, Madonna s’attire les foudres de la classe politique française. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem monte au créneau.
Madonna a beau chanter l’amour avec son nouvel album intitulé All your luvin’, son message n’est pas que synonyme d’apaisement. Même en Terre sainte où elle donnait un concert la semaine dernière, la diva a réussi à provoquer une vague de colère jusqu’à nos portes.
Son dernier fait d’armes a été jugé «malheureux» par Najat Vallaud-Belkacem. La ministre des Drois des femmes interrogée sur i-Télé a condamné de ce simple mot l’incartade de la chanteuse afin de ne pas jeter de l’huile sur le feu.
Pendant l’entracte de son show, la production de la tournée a diffusé le clip du titre Nobody Knows Me. Dans cette vidéo on y voit Madonna changer tour à tour de regard, de bouche ou de nez, la transformant en Sarah Palin, Benoît XVI ou Hu Jintao. Puis, vient le moment où au détour de ce montage, la star passe par la ressemblance avec une Marine Le Pen affublée d’une croix gammée sur le front.
Au FN le message a tout de suite résonné aux oreilles de la présidente qui parle «d’une vieille chanteuse qui ne sait plus quoi faire pour qu’on parle d’elle». Pas de pitié donc pour l’interprète de Like a virgin qui s’expose à des poursuites judiciaires de la part du parti de Marine Le Pen en cas de récidive.
Séparée de Johnny Depp officiellement depuis un mois, elle a envisagé un moment de s’installer à Beverly Hills. Pour permettre à Lily Rose et Jack de ne pas changer d’école et de voir leur père à l’envi. Mais le mal du pays l’a emporté. C’est à Paris que Vanessa se composera désormais un nouveau quotidien de mère célibataire…
Cette fois, c’est décidé: elle s’installe à Paris. Un petit mois après l’officialisation de sa rupture avec Johnny Depp, et au retour d’une promo marathon du film de Cécile Rouaud,Je me suis fait tout petit, Vanessa Paradis a posé ses malles dans la capitale.
Les badauds de Saint-Germain-des-Prés l’ont aperçue, les 11 et 12 juillet dernier, écumer les boutiques de décoration et les antiquaires du Quartier latin. Au Bain Rose, rue d’Assas, elle a chiné du mobilier de salle de bain rétro, style 1900–1930. Escortée par son père, André Paradis, lui-même entrepreneur en région parisienne, elle a visité les espaces carrelage, sanitaire et parquet du Forum Point P, rue Boursault dans le dix-septième arrondissement de Paris. Signe qu’il y du gros œuvre en cours… Pour elle aussi, le changement, c’est maintenant! Vanessa aurait pu se contenter de redécorer l’hôtel particulier qu’elle avait acheté du temps de sa love story avec Mister Depp, à Meudon (dans les Hauts-de-Seine), mais elle a préféré se dégoter un nouvel appartement dans un quartier chic de Paris. Plus question pour la chanteuse de quitter l’Hexagone. Dès la fin de l’été, tous ses effets personnels seront rapatriés du pays de l’Oncle Sam vers la patrie de Voltaire.
Johnny Depp lui-même est venu lui déposer leurs deux enfants, dont il assurait la garde à Los Angeles depuis mi-juin et jusqu’au début des vacances scolaires, le 13 juillet, à Nice. Depuis, Lily Rose et Jack se reposent avec leur mère dans leur villa du Plan-de-la-Tour, à une vingtaine de kilomètres de Saint-Tropez. Johnny, lui, s’est ré-envolé dare-dare pour New Mexico où il tourne actuellement The Lone Ranger de Gore Verbinski, un film à gros budget produit par les studios Disney. Dorénavant, ils le savent tous, il faudra composer avec la séparation, l’absence, la distance et les neuf heures de décalage horaire entre Paris et la Californie.
En septembre, Lily Rose devrait faire sa rentrée en troisième dans un collège parisien. A dix ans, Jack, lui, rentrera en sixième. Ces années cruciales pour la scolarité de ses petits, Vanessa ne veut pas les manquer. Pas plus que leur adolescence déjà bien entamée. «Mes enfants, j’ai envie d‘être avec eux, de les voir grandir, de ne rien louper. Il n’y a rien de plus intéressant», avait-elle confié à Madame Figaro, en 2007. Depuis, son désir n’a pas changé. Même si, du haut de ses treize ans, Lily Rose est devenue un sacré bout de jeune fille. Sûre d’elle et très mature. Parfaitement bilingue, elle est aussi précoce que l’étaient ses parents. Johnny Depp a quitté l’école à 15 ans pour se lancer dans la vie active. Vanessa n’a que 14 ans lorsqu’elle entonne Joe le taxi pour la première fois. Lily Rose, elle, possède à 13 ans l’aplomb et le recul nécessaires pour faire face à toutes les situations. Même les plus inconfortables, comme la séparation ultramédiatisée de ses parents. En contact quotidien avec ses best friends américaines, via son compte Twitter, l’adolescente semble plus joviale et enjouée qu’affectée. Elle dont le père s’étonnait dans nos pages en mai dernier qu’elle ait déjà ses propres sites de fans, sait faire bonne figure et contre mauvaise fortune bon cœur… Tout comme maman.
Car si Vanessa se dit de nature «angoissée et fataliste», elle étonne et garde le sourire. Elle le sait: son équilibre en dépend. Après la rentrée, elle filera en studio enregistrer un nouvel album, attendu courant 2013. Pour l’heure, le projet compte quelques titres écrits de sa main et des collaborations avec ses accolytes habituels – Matthieu Chedid, Albin de la Simone, Franck Monnet, entre autres. A ce propos, Vaness’ a confié au magazine Femina: «Cela fait cinq ans que je ne suis pas allée en studio. C’est l’un des moments que je préfère. On est dans un endroit isolé, complètement plongé dans la musique, et ça, c’est merveilleux. Voir les chansons naître, les découvrir de plus en plus belles et de plus en plus fortes.» Plus belle et plus forte, comme Vanessa, jeune maman célibataire.
Click:Hyperbaric Chamber 1.5 ATA 950 000 livres sterling, soit un peu plus 1,2 millions d’euros, c’est le prix de la somptueuse bâtisse datant du XIVe siècle, à Lavenham (Suffolk), au Royaume-Uni, la première maison de Harry Potter, actuellement en vente.
Plusieurs scènes inoubliables des aventures de l’apprenti sorcier ont été immortalisées dans la maison De Vere, dans la ville de Lavenham, au Sud-Est du Royaume-Uni, en vente depuis ce mercredi pour la somme rondelette de 1,2 millions d’euros, selon le site MailOnline. C’est notamment là que Harry Potter voit le jour, là encore que ses parents sont tués par celui dont on ne doit pas prononcer le nom et que le petit garçon, lui, s’en sort avec une simple blessure au front, reconnaissable entre mille. C’est également à partir de plusieurs photographies de la maison qu’a été reconstitué le célèbre village de sorciers Godric’s Hollow, dans lequel Harry et ses complices Hermione et Ron se rendent à plusieurs reprises dans la saga.
Il n’y a pas que la façade qui impose son somptueux style médiéval: l’intérieur aussi a été entièrement rénové par l’influente famille De Vere pendant des décennies et les propriétaires actuels. Jane et Tony Rezetta, qui ont eu un vrai coup de cœur pour cette maison il y a 23 ans, confient se sentir davantage comme «de simples gardiens, un honneur pour eux», et ont pris soin de l’entretenir avec goût. La demeure comprend un hall d’entrée, un salon, une salle à manger, une cuisine, une laverie, trois chambres, trois salles de bain, et un grenier.
Mais c’est surtout un endroit qui respire la magie de Harry Potter. Un lieu chargé d’histoire aussi: le Roi Henri VII en personne s’y serait rendu en 1498.
Si vous êtes intéressés, les photos sont visibles sur le site du Dailymail…
Commission aims to grab more power over car industry
Proposed new car rules mark a significant expansion of Brussels authority over the bloc’s vehicle approval system.
The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled a “major overhaul” of the bloc’s car approval system, a reaction to the Volkswagen emission scandal that tarnished the industry’s reputation and highlighted problems with EU’s car regulations.
The proposal, which has gained momentum since Volkswagen admitted to equipping its cars with so-called defeat devices in September, is aimed at making three underlying changes.
First, to strengthen the independence of national centers responsible for testing new car models, known as technical services. It would stop car manufacturers from paying them directly for the tests and would set more stringent performance criteria for these centers. The Commission also proposes subjecting the centers to regular audits. National authorities with the power to certify new car models as road worthy would be subject to peer reviews to ensure they aren’t soft on the local car industry.
Second, to create a market surveillance system that detects offenders early on, by having national governments and the Commission carry out spot checks on cars already in the market. It would also allow all EU countries to take action against offenders in their territory, even if they were approved elsewhere.
That’s a significant expansion of EU powers, so expect a pushback from countries with big car industries like Germany, France and Italy.
Third, it gives Brussels much more power over the car approval system by allowing the Commission to suspend, restrict or withdraw a technical service’s designation if it is found to be under-performing or fails to apply the rules effectively. Brussels would also be able to test cars already on the road. Cars that fall short could be recalled by either the Commission or by national authorities — another expansion of EU powers that encroaches on national sovereignty.
Take the City out of Europe and there won’t be much left of its current global luster, warn London-based bankers and financiers.
LONDON — It’s a strange world when you can’t trust a conservative UK government to defend the global interests of the City of London.
And that’s why the financial industry isn’t bothering to wait for talks between Prime Minister David Cameron and his European partners to state clearly on which side it will stand on a referendum on the UK’s European Union membership: a resounding, unqualified “yes” for staying in, whatever the outcome of London’s attempt to reform the way Europe works.
The arguments all center around one overwhelming reality: In the last decades, London has become a global financial center, rivaling Wall Street — but it could only do so because it is first and foremost Europe’s financial capital.
Take the City out of Europe, and there won’t be much left of its current global luster, warn London-based bankers, asset and fund managers and insurers.
“Brexit” supporters say the fears are overblown, and there might be a way for London-as-financial-center to prosper outside the EU. But the overwhelming feeling among business circles, across all industrial sectors, is that it would severely hit the British economy.
“Of course the EU needs to reform, but even right now, the benefits of membership for the UK hugely outweigh the disadvantages,” says Andy Bagnall, campaigns director at the Confederation of British Industry, the UK’s employers federation. Sir Mike Rake, the CBI president, recently made a speech asking UK businessmen to enter the fray by “being crystal clear that membership is in [the] national interest.”
This week, Moody’s, the ratings agency, became the latest institution to warn that leaving the EU would isolate the UK economy from trade and growth opportunities, put pressure on the pound sterling and perhaps lead to a downgrade of the country’s sovereign debt.
Fears of the Brexit risk are even more vivid in finance, the one sector where the UK is the undisputed European leader — and which would have the most to lose if London decided to split. In a report published in March, Open Europe, the London-based think tank, noted that leaving the EU would have the most severe consequences for the UK financial services industry. More than 40 percent of the City’s business is with the rest of the EU, generating a £16 billion (€22 billion) annual trade surplus in financial services.
For London financiers, the nightmare scenario goes like this. First, the City loses its easy access to the European market. Then, with active encouragement from other, hostile European capitals, part of the financial industry relocates to the continent. “A lot of activities will repatriate to Paris or Frankfurt,” says the chief operating officer of a major French bank with important business in London. “I’d say mostly Paris,” he quips. “I don’t think bankers are eager to go live in Frankfurt.”
Losing access to Europe’s single market will become automatic if the UK leaves. It can then either opt for a “third country” status and renegotiate all its existing arrangements and treaties with the EU, or try to remain within the single market — like Norway — but without any say on its rules and regulations. In other words: London will be either cut off, or powerless.
That explains why some major banks such as HSBC or Deutsche Bank have already indicated that they might switch operations from London in case of an EU exit. For both banks, there would be other reasons for the move — and neither one might end up actually relocating to the continent. Asia will be HSBC’s natural destination, and Deutsche may be tempted by New York.
The worries aren’t exclusively those of European banks. U.S. institutions have long seen London as the entry point to the rest of Europe and would look elsewhere to conduct their continental business. In the last couple of years, banks such as J.P. Morgan or Goldman Sachs have warned about the possibility of Brexit. European banks would leave London “in very short order” if it ever happened, Goldman Sachs International co-chief executive Michael Sherwood famously warned in September, 2013.
The exodus would be a natural for all the European banks that domiciled most of their wholesale activities (i.e., lending and borrowing between financial institutions themselves) in London over the last 20 years. Prompted by lighter regulations and a friendly tax system, Italian, German or French banks made London their second headquarters in all but name. They would have little reasons to remain if the UK wasn’t part of the same economic space.
The risk of relocation is acute in finance, but industrial companies fear Brexit as well. Their business with the continent would be severely hit if the UK sits outside the single market. And their exports to the rest of the world would also take a beating, as London will have to renegotiate the dozen trade treaties the EU has signed over the years with other countries.
But it’s hard and cumbersome to move a British car-parts factory or pharmaceutical production line to Spain or Italy. Finance types, on the other hand, can move anywhere in the world overnight. It only takes a one-way Eurostar ticket for a banker to relocate.
A major financial exodus would come at a high fiscal cost for the UK government. It gets about 11.5 percent of its tax revenue from the financial services industry. According to a recent PwC report, the sector paid an estimated £66 billion (€89 billion) in to total taxes in the fiscal year 2013-3014. Almost half of this was made up of the income tax paid by the 1 million-plus employees working in finance.
No wonder that nearly half (49 percent) of City professionals polled earlier this year by the Center for the Study of Financial Innovation would “definitely” vote no to Brexit, while another 24 percent are “likely” to vote the same way. That’s nearly three out of four bankers, traders of fund managers eager to remain within the EU.
Younger financiers are even more Europhile than their elders – which is consistent with all other polls on the matter: Eighty percent in the 18-30 age group would favor remaining within the EU. And according to the CSFI study, the City is strictly driven by its own interests here: It wants to remain in the EU even though “it doesn’t like Brussels, fears European regulation and is worried about the political drift of the EU.”
For the City, there would be bitter irony in Brexit, after the UK’s huge contribution to the creation of a European financial single market. No EU financial regulation has ever been adopted against the opposition of London, and most bear the influence of the light-touch regulation school that dominated the pre-crisis years. The liberalization pursued since then has expanded even further the opportunities offered to City players. Richard Metcalfe, the director or regulatory affairs at the Investment Association, which represents asset managers, mentions for example the possibility to “market funds throughout the EU, with a high level of safety and economies of scale.”
The City has even benefited from a seismic shift it wasn’t a part of: the creation of the euro. The monetary union has created a single-currency financial market whose capital is London — even though it chose to opt out. The City has prospered outside the eurozone — but largely thanks to the eurozone.
Finally, the UK might leave just as the EU is embarking on a reform that would offer even more opportunities for London’s financiers: the capital markets union, designed to break down remaining national barriers to the free flow of capital and allow seamless financing of the economy throughout the EU. The reform falls under the jurisdiction of UK European Commissioner Jonathan Hill, who has started the job in earnest.
You can still find a minority of hardcore Euroskeptics in the City of London. They argue that London could not only survive, but even prosper as an off-shore center, geared towards the needs of global — as opposed to strictly European — financial markets. The UK, so the theory goes, would revert to its light-touch regulation model, break free from the cumbersome Brussels bureaucracy and better cater to the needs of emerging economies from Asia to the Middle East.
The argument pays scant regard to the fact that if anything, UK regulations of banks or the financial sector have been as strict as in the rest of Europe, if not stricter, in the last five years. Unsurprisingly the City of London has lost in popularity since the 2007-2008, so any government would think twice before it wants to restore it to its former unregulated glory.
Then there’s the question of the EU’s possible reaction. “There would be active retaliation,” says Leon Cornelissen, chief economist of Robeco, the €200 billion Dutch asset manager. “European governments will resent an overblown financial center at their door and they could really make things difficult for London” through potent regulation or protectionist measures.
For now — precisely because the financial industry is not at its height in popularity at the moment — City lobbies don’t plan to campaign aggressively, and bet that reason will prevail overtime.
“Once tempers cool, they will look at the numbers and get real,” says a London investment banker, talking about British voters and reflecting the general sentiment, or hope, of the City. Meanwhile, in executive suites, contingency plans are drafted in case reason doesn’t prevail. And financiers are already confronted with the clear and immediate risk presented by the Brexit debate: its utter unpredictability.
When Athens’ new radical-left Syrzia government began its confrontation with creditors three months ago, European governments were confident they knew how the drama would unfold.
A series of inevitable “make or break” weeks would end inconclusively. Demands would be made, ultimatums issued, fingers pointed. Finance ministers and central bankers would share their deep concerns.
Then a bargain would be struck. Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras would tone down the rhetoric and get to work. His team would agree on some reforms. The eurozone in exchange would be ready for a version of the familiar “extend and pretend” deals that keep the Greek economy afloat. It could even agree on relaxing some of the most painful austerity measures forced on the Greeks in exchange for their two previous bailouts.
But now the plot is taking a swerve into something new. Europe’s powers-that-be have lost faith in the Syriza government’s ability or will to strike a deal. European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi is publicly ruminating about a possible Greek exit from the eurozone. Even the French European commissioner Pierre Moscovici, hailing from a country most sympathetic to the Greek cause, is losing patience.
These officials know the rules of the game of brinkmanship. They are aware that the Greeks want to stay in the eurozone and the EU, and that they are just trying to push the limits. But what if they were really amateurs playing with fire near a powder keg, unaware of the risks they are taking with Greece’s economy and its future in Europe?
Greece’s creditors — mostly other European nations, as well as the ECB and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — are looking ahead at the serious prospect of default, and they are also looking backward. What went wrong?
A deal might yet be struck. But in three short months the Syriza government has managed to squander the goodwill of its eurozone partners. They see a leadership that doesn’t know the difference between posturing and governing, newcomers to a long-running card game who don’t know that you got to know when to hold ‘em — and when to fold ‘em.
Overplay your hand
From the moment of its electoral victory, Syriza blared its belief that public creditors wouldn’t dare risking failure in the negotiations that would inevitably take place. But the Greek euro crisis of 2015 has little in common with that of 2010. The EU was then willing to bend in many directions to avoid a possible exit from the euro that would have been an existential threat to the union. Greece leaving today would merely shake — badly — but not kill, the rest of the eurozone. Public creditors own most of the country’s debt, which would limit the fallout of a Greek collapse. And the new single banking regulator has started the necessary cleaning of European financial institutions.
Mistake politics for governing
Syriza is new to power, and its leaders have no experience of government. They operate under the conviction that “everything is political” — the belief that economic realities can be shaped and transformed by the mere power of ideas. European officials had hoped that some time in power would push Mr. Tsipras to learn the art of compromise and hard decisions. But Syriza governs as it campaigned. In their talks with the EU, Greek leaders have skirted the technical discussions on the type of reforms they intend to implement. They focused instead on absurd political symbols — such as changing the name of the ‘Troika’ of creditors (made up of the Commission, the IMF and the ECB) which must now be called “the institutions”. As if the new name could improve the mood or substance of the talks. Syriza has remained vague and non-committal even on the elements of its own platform that appealed most to the rest of Europe — like the promised fight against the debilitating tax fraud, which is crippling the state budget.
Lecture the world
Greek hubris has a face: Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who seems to spend more time giving interviews or taking part in conferences with his academic friends than tending to his day job. Forget the untucked shirt and the Paris Match-photographed luxurious apartment with a view of the Parthenon. The rich “rock star” minister image wouldn’t have stuck if Varoufakis hadn’t exasperated the other finance ministers with his lectures about macroeconomics, and the condescending way he assesses their intellectual performance. He has opined that German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has “the most intellectual substance” among his peers — an unlikely way to make friends. More exasperating for his colleagues, the off-handed way Varoufakis treats any inquiry about his concrete plans for Greece. At a conference earlier this month in Paris, he joked that the VAT rate didn’t have much importance in Greece, since Greeks don’t pay the tax anyway.
Think you’re the only one with voters
Prime Minister Tsipras is more eager to keep his left base happy and together than to address Europeans’ concerns. That is the classic dilemma of parties riding to power on radical platforms: ditch the crazy in the name or realism, or keep it to avoid the “treason” label. The Greek prime minister promised never to ask for another bailout and has stuck to it so far. But he will just have to find another name for whatever deal he strikes with the eurozone — if any. He may remain popular — at least as long as Greece doesn’t default unilaterally, which would lead to more economic pain.
Tsipras forgets that other leaders have voters too. He asked Europe to “take democracy into account” when he became prime minister. After three months, democracy in the rest of Europe is turning against him.
As Athens is scraping by to meet its debt obligations, the risk is that it may find itself unable to meet one of the deadlines it faces before the summer. It might have to “default” either to its own people by failing to pay the €1.7 billion monthly government salary bill, or on its IMF loans, or, worse of the worst, on a big €3.5 billion ECB bond due in July.
While expressing his frustration with Greece, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker earlier this week expressed his confidence that Greece would avoid both default and a euro exit. But so far neither side is in a mood to budge. The Syriza government’s hope that the EU will blink first may be the fifth and worst misjudgement of its brief time in office.