On Monday the #euro faced another test when the #French elections were rounded up and counted. Indeed, it was a sizable test for a geopolitical currency that has lurched from one crisis to the next and that some say is on the brink of possible extinction.
The #Euro Currency has faced economic stagnation, national bankruptcies and plenty of country-to-country accusations and drama, as well as enemies in the French elections who want to tear it apart.
Life goes on for the currency
Luckily the euro has endured yet another challenge – and it was the first round of the French elections that global liberals have touted as bringing momentary relief.
#Marine Le Pen, the demagogue of the very right-wing National Front party who is a close tie in or second place to Emmanuelle Macron, has long frowned upon the Euro and described it as a threat to French affluence.
During her campaign, #Le Pen promised to create a new French currency that would have signaled the euro's serious possible termination. She promised to rework France's standing in the European Union, and threatened to fracture European unity – which has long been a hallmark of European peace and prosperity – since the end of the Second World War.
With her chances of winning the #French election seeming to increase in the past few weeks, the international financial markets responded with unease and trepidation, and investors made demands for bigger returns on the French government's massive debt; this, according to financial analyst, is a sign that a national default, even though it was previously a tiny possibility, is a multiplying probability.
During these last few nervous weeks, investors were seen to be buying up options that give sound protection in case the euro were to take a nose dive and flat out disintegrate.
Elections results encouraging to euro
With the first round of the French election posted and Le pen's centrist opponent #Emannuel Macron seeming to be in a narrow lead, the markets thankfully saw the value of the euro rise against the dollar with such positivity showing in other markets as well.
On Monday, European stocks rose again in value and the borrowing costs for the French government seemed to fall in scale. This eased tensions across world banking and financial systems and also broadcast to skeptics that the euro isn't done once and for all.
Le Pen's promises
Most don’t believe that #Le Pen could possibly deliver her promises to the French economy and country, and in the polls she remains an unlikely winner overall.
Even if she did score victory she would be working with a scattered minority in the Parliament when elections post in June. She would be operating as a party lead in status only and bowing to the demands of a prime minister to be chosen by whatever party is in control. This would sour her promises of a financial transformation in the existing currency and would make her election campaign promises a futile sound bite that she could never deliver on.
Since 2014 Le Pen has talked about dimming the euro and getting a parallel currency such as the franc going. But in redenominating the government's big debt France's credit rating would fall and this could trigger a possible threat to markets and other fiscal ratings.
Some experts, however, talk of a possible timeline of events if Le Pen did get in to office. She could renegotiate the terms of the EU membership before the June parliamentary elections and get rid of France's central bank governor and then install her own money manager to introduce the franc. This possibility was described by London-based risk analyst Mujtaba Rahman, who works at the Eurasia Group.
