February 19, 2008 (LPAC) -- The global financial system is infected with toxic paper, the banks have stopped lending to each other, and this will lead us into a new depression, former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard writes in a syndicated article to be published this month in newspapers throughout the world.

The financial crisis will be "deep and long," Rocard forecasts.

The huge volume of overvalued liquidity is not explained just by recent monetary creation, but resulted from the pressure by shareholders to channel capital away from wages and productive investment into the financial sphere, he argues. This went together with a rising immorality of the system.

Altogether, this is leading to a chain reaction towards a social and economic crisis, Rocard concludes in his article titled "Financial Crisis, or Economic Crisis?"