THE GUARDIAN: Standard & Poor's strips France of its AAA credit rating, rekindling fears in the markets over future of single currency
Europe has been plunged into a fresh crisis after France was stripped of its coveted AAA credit rating in a mass downgrade of nine eurozone countries by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's.
S&P said austerity was driving Europe even deeper into financial crisis as it also cut Austria's triple-A rating, and relegated Portugal and Cyprus to junk status.
The humiliating loss of France's top-rated status leaves Germany as the only other major economy inside the eurozone with a AAA rating, and rekindled financial market anxiety about a possible break-up of the single currency.
S&P brought an abrupt end to the uneasy calm that has existed in the eurozone since the turn of the year by downgrading the ratings of Cyprus, Italy, Portugal and Spain by two notches. Austria, France, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia were all cut by one notch.
The agency said that its actions on eurozone ratings were "primarily driven by insufficient policy measures by EU leaders to fully address systemic stresses". It added that fiscal austerity alone "risks becoming self-defeating". » | Larry Elliott and Phillip Inman | Friday, January 13, 2012
