-Adds Fuller Quotes From French President
PARIS (MNI) – France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy Friday reaffirmed
his support for Greece late Friday, casting it as both a moral and an
economic obligation to save the debt-choked country.
Speaking outside the presidential palace here after an hour-long
meeting with Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou, Sarkozy also
said he would be meeting with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in “the
upcoming days” to discuss how best to “accelerate the economic
integration of the Eurozone and implement as quickly as possible the
measures that were put in place on July 21.”
He said Germany and France must have total agreement on the way
forward in order to dampen speculation and market turbulence.
Europe is not only a civilization but also family, the French
leader said, and “when a member of the family experiences hardship, the
other members of the family must mobilize to assist it.”
He added: “It is not possible to allow Greece to fall, for economic
reasons and for moral reasons.”
Sarkozy acknowledged the suffering of the Greek people over the
past weeks and months as draconian austerity measures have hit them. But
he added that, “for too many years, reforms were put off and bad habits
developed.”
He said Papandreou had assured him of “the total determination of
the Greek government to scrupulously implement in their entirety the
commitments that Greece has undertaken.”
The Greek prime minister also expressed his desire for total
transparency so that Greece’s European partners can verify that Athens
is meeting its commitments, Sarkozy said.
–Paris newsroom, +331-42-71-55-40; bwolfson@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: M$X$$$,M$F$$$,M$Y$$$,M$G$$$,MGX$$$,M$$CR$,MT$$$$]
