HOLLANDE VERSUS THE BANKERS

The following are excerpts from a 12 January, 2012 Francois Hollande campaign speech:

"In this battle that is joined, I will reveal who is my opponent, my true adversary. He has no name, no face; he belongs to no party; he will never declare his candidacy. He will not be elected, yet he governs. 

"My enemy is the world of finance.

"Before our eyes, in the past 20 years, finance has taken over the economy, society, and even our lives. It is now possible, in a split second, to move astronomical amounts of money, threatening the very fabric of states.”

“What was once merely an influence has become an empire. And, far from being diminished, it has been strengthened further by the [2008] crisis. Confronted by the force of finance, the pious promises of regulation, the incantations of ‘never again’ have come to nothing.”

“Banks, rescued by the states, now eat the hand that fed them. Rating agencies, rightly criticized for not spotting the subprime crisis, determine the fate of leading countries’ sovereign debts, creating bogus justification for increasingly painful austerity. And the hedge funds, far from having disappeared, spread the spores of destabilization attacking us all. Thus has finance been unleashed: freed from all rules, from all morality, from all control.”

“Defeating the forces of finance will start with a law that will oblige banks to separate credit activities from speculative investment banking. 

"No French bank will be allowed to operate from a tax haven. 

"Toxic financial products that bear no relation to the needs of the real economy will be banned, pure and simple. 

"Stock options will be cancelled, and we will bring in limits on bonuses.”

“Finally, I propose a tax on all financial transactions, not simply a restoration of stamp duty, which was removed a few months ago…

"No, I will propose a real tax on financial transactions, along with those in Europe who stand ready to implement them with us. I propose, too, if we wish to avoid being judged by ratings agencies of questionable legitimacy, that we set up, at the European level, a public rating agency.”

“I will act to create eurobonds to pool a portion of sovereign debt to finance large projects….I will propose a new trade policy in Europe that will prevent unfair competition, setting strict rules in matters of social affairs, the environment, and reciprocity. This will be complemented by an environmental tax on European imports. I will continue to act for a fair euro-dollar exchange rate. 

"I will not accept that the Chinese currency remains inconvertible at a time when the country that is now the world’s biggest exporter registers surpluses without ever facing a revaluation."

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Le grand mensonge: why François Hollande's end-to-austerity message is just smoke and mirrors

Hollande's mother, Nicole Frédérique Marguerite Tribert (1927–2009), was a social worker, and his father, Georges Gustave Hollande, a doctor who "had once run for the extreme right in local politics". The surname "Hollande" is "believed to come from Calvinist ancestors who escaped Holland in the 16th century and took the name of their old country." Hollande was raised a Catholic.