May 5, 2008 (LPAC)-- Paris--Today's Le Figaro publishes a full-page interview with two former Prime Ministers, Michel Rocard (Socialist) and Edouard Balladur (UMP), on the occasion of the first anniversary of Nicolas Sarkozy's election, against the background of the financial crisis. To a first question on the fact that Sarkozy could not have predicted the fall of the dollar, the subprime crisis and the rest, Rocard responds that "with the exception of inflation, all the rest was perfectly predictable and I'm among those who have been tirelessly announcing this situation for three years." On the fact that some are saying the subprime crisis is already over, both Balladur and Rocard say that no one knows whether it is over or not. Rocard adds, "Things are worse than they seem, because behind the excesses of the credit pyramid and of a certain number of difficulties, there is so-called Milton Friedman doctrine which is that of the supremacy of market," a doctrine that claims that "any attempt to correct the market balance, when it is socially or ecologically unsatisfactory, will lead to perturbations which will make more losers than winners."

Edouard Balladur also rejects an unbridled liberalism: "I have never thought that the unconditional apology for a market without regulation was the foundation of liberalism. Liberty must be orderly, submitted to principles and regulation which avoids its becoming anarchistic." Michel Rocard develops the same argument and goes further: "We destroyed the international monetary system early on some 40 years ago. Since we are incapable of rebuilding it, we prefer to make excuses for the disorder created by the generalized floating of currencies and the explosion of credit creation which is one of the major causes of speculation and of financial, and therefore economic, imbalances."

But this is where the views of the two former prime ministers diverged sharply. Balladur asserts that Europe must cooperate more closely with the U.S., but under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, creating a European oligarchical super-state, eliminating national sovereignty altogether. In a recent book he published, he called for the creation of a "Western Union." "With the world becoming organized into large regions," he wrote, "it is in our interest as Europeans to become organized with the American, but on an equal footing. Wouldn't it be normal that, between the President of the U.S., assisted by his Secretary of Treasury and by the American central bank, there be held meetings every three months with the president of the European Union, assisted by officials of the euro zone and the European Central bank, to debate, for instance, relations between the euro and the dollar, or on common regulations on financial and banking matters?"

Michel Rocard, for his part, says: "I am, like you, clear on the fact that inter-European regulations are no longer sufficient to deal with globalized finance. I think also that in the United States there is reflection upon the fact that too much has been done by the absence of regulation. I extend my wish, therefore, that France should prepare, convoke, a vast world financial conference which we could call a Bretton Woods II"