French Presidential Election: taking stock of the situation and decrypting current issues

The essential

French elections are a major concern for the financial markets because they are emblematic of current trends: the rise of far-right (or extreme left) parties in the EMU core countries (peripheral countries), The growing rejection of the establishment, protectionist temptations, hostility towards Europe and / or the European institutions, the fight against inequalities, the debate on the sharing of added value (employees vs. shareholders) ...

 The very fact that it is possible to contemplate the election of an anti-European candidate or who wants to reform Europe or leave the EU is likely to generate uncertainty, volatility and damage to the financial markets (weakness of the euro, increasing interest rate spreads against Germany, a rise in CDS levels ...). Note that exiting EU is complex, while a Frexit would seriously damage (destroy) the European construction. This is not our scenario, but we must admit that before the election results, the likelihood of seeing stress disappear is virtually nil.