French President Francois Hollande revealed that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wanted to print Drachmas in Russia. In a book “Presidents should not talk about such things” Hollande speaks about a conservation he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin in summer of 2015, the peak of the Greek crisis before the government surrendered to the European lenders.
Hollande received a phone call by Putin who said:
“I want to give you this information. Greece asked us to print Drachmas because they have no longer a printer for this. I want to tell you that this is something [ apparently the Grexit] that we do not want.”
The book author note that this Greek request was a proof that Greece was thinking to exit the eurozone.
Hollande wondered why Putin passed him over such an information. “Probably he [Putin] didn’t want to be considered responsible for the Grexit and to say also that a Grexit was a danger that had to be avoided.”
According to the book, both Germany and the International Monetary Fund wanted Greece out of the eurozone.
Below a phone conversation between French Finance Minister Michel Sapin and President Hollande, referring to Germany wanting to have Greece out of the eurozone:
Sapin: “Germans are sticking to the argument that the Greek debt is not sustainable.”
Hollande: “They are able to do so. there is a statement by Merkel saying debt relief is out of discussion.”
A little later in the book
Hollande: “Lagarde is in favor of Grexit. She told me so with arguments that have some basis: she believes that with such debt Greece cannot be rescued and it is better off the eurozone. Lagarde is polite but she is under pressure by the US administration and the IMF.”
Authors of the book are two Le Monde journalists Davet and Llomme and is based on Hollande’s confessions to them.
Greek reaction
Speaking to Greek media, government sources confirmed that there were contacts with President Putin but that “at no time the Greek PM discussed such an issue.”
Russian reaction
Also Kremlin dismissed Hollande’s claims on Friday morning. More here.
PS No printer for Drachmas? My cat has a tiny kitty-printer, however it is programmed to print Euros. This cat claimed, she can also do world politics based on hear-saying and kitty-talk.
Mr Hollande needs to do a bit of research before opening his mouth. The Banknote Printing Works of the Bank of Greece (IETA), located in Halandri, Attica, has been printing banknotes continuously since just after WWII, and currently is one of the official printers of Euro currency. Why is it that Europe produces so many ignorant leaders?
Even more research would bring to public that it’s no need to print Drachmas as the banks basements are full with it – regarding Varoufakis it took the US-occupation one year for printing new money in Iraq and so unless there is no official occupation in Greece it would take longer
Hollande is a gossipping fishwife. It is a disgrace for the French that he is their President, just as Sarkozy was a disgrace before. The quality of politicians everywhere has collapsed, bringing democracy under serious threat and almost inevitable demise.
Why?
Maybe because whole EU is in crisis, weak and will probably stay in crisis, due to economical problems of some countries, but also thanks to migrants wave. If EU and eurozone will fall apart, only some countries will stay in crisis.
Weak EU is good for Russia.
Greece also provides open door to EU, for russia and migrants.
Europe and the developed world have low quality politicians for a mix of reasons — paramount among them being the role of political party organisations in promoting manipulative idiots to party leader, along with electorates that are increasingly both poorly educated and vociferous — the latter problem through internet and social networking. It has NOTHING AT ALL to do with migrants, whose number is insignificant for the EU as a whole, and EVERYTHING to do with the stupidity of common people — who repeatedly elect crooks, liars and idiots to run their country.
Soon Britain will be clean from East-European migrants and the supremacy of stupidity will laugh its ass off in some Hungarian relocation camps at the shores of the Danube meeting true national solidarity until they scar off tourists
The German door is much more open, their banks watchdog “BAFIN” allowed DEUTSCHE BANK to wash some 10 billion Euro for Putin’s buddies aka mafia-gang and some of these billions were transferred to Krankfurt even after the sanctions started.
A lot of speculation.
Perhaps Tsipras was just playing a game to force the Troika to give favorable conditions. I guess it back fired then.
Dear all, there is no case our Alex would ever have asked Vladimir to print money. It is however true that if you want to have enough new notes printed to supply an entire country, this takes some months. And, of course, this is the best method to introduce a new currency: have everything ready and do it in one weekend. From this point of view, it would have been prudent to ask for additional printing help in other countries.
Rest assured however that this request never happened; it needs courage and conviction, something which Alex miserably lacks. The poor, ignorant, frightened boy was already in Merkel’s pocket, even before the January 2015 election.
I’m very much inclined to believe you. However, if it wasn’t true, why would Hollande make such a claim? What does he stand to gain from it? Just curious…
He is a moron who is concerned only with politics, not with reality.
Real East-“Berliners” would know from the tapes they’d done
Very funny. That was more than 25 years ago, I was a small child at the time. Really, I was just asking out of genuine interest.
No idea, but it reminds of “leaks” French media made regarding Sarkozy’s rascist blurbs about Papandreou when he came up with his referendum idea and had to meet all these godfathers of politics in Nizza G-8 or 20: “The zaziki stinks!” or so