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Greece must provide more work and results, said the French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who put pressure on Athens in an interview with Austrian daily Der Standard to be released this Saturday.

"Greece must deliver results and why the country must do more than during the last twelve months," said Christine Lagarde, whose name is mentioned as a successor to Dominique Strauss-Kahn to head the IMF.

Asked about her refusal of any debt restructuring, Christine Lagarde said: "We already gave Athens more time to repay its loans in the euro area is already a concession."He continued: "It is legitimate that we expected that Greece will make its share of work."

"We do not want a state of bankruptcy"

The French Minister of Economy recognizes that the Greek government has done things, "but there are still areas where things are moving too slowly", referring to privatizations. "Either Greece delivers results, then we can imagine additional help.Otherwise there is the question of how Greece is ready to play the game for its own bailout, "said ministre.Et further emphasized:" What we certainly do not want, c 'is a state of bankruptcy, a default in Europe ..

While the Greek Government discusses the rise in unemployment generated by the austerity plan, the minister reminded the unemployment rate in Spain, according to her superior to that of Greece, but where "the country still does its job, saved and managed to turn around. "

Challenge to implement a program

The rating agency Fitch, meanwhile, lowered on Friday noted the long-term debt of Greece to three notches. This is a new blow to Athens which also saw its borrowing costs on market reached a new record.Fitch lowered the rating of BB + Greek + to B, referring to the "challenge" for Greece that is the "implementation of a program of structural reform and radical tax necessary to ensure the solvency of the state and the foundations of sustained economic recovery "in the country.

"New fiscal austerity measures are necessary" to achieve that Greece's budget deficit target of 7.5% of GDP in 2011, said Fitch. The agency suggests including poor tax revenues and difficulties in implementing a privatization program.

Greece also saw its cost of borrowing on the markets at a record Friday, the rate of its ten-year bonds exceeding 16.7%. Sign that investors fear that Greece is not able to honor its debts.

The Greek prime minister said his country would repay its entire debt."We will refund the loans," said George Papandreou, whose country was granted last year a plan to help the EU and the IMF amounting to 110 billion euros to avoid it default.

But many observers believe that Greece will avoid a major restructuring of its debt, meaning pay creditors later or less than expected. But the European Central Bank precludes this scenario.

In the wake of Fitch, another rating agency S & P has for its part lowered by one notch the rating of the long-term debt of the Crédit Agricole to 'A +' cons 'AA-' before, because of its exposure Greece."We believe that the French banking group Credit Agricole is particularly prone in Greece, because of the issue of solvency and the economic outlook" of the country, particularly through its subsidiary Emporiki, S & P said in a statement.

(With Agencies)

The natural disaster that shook Japan on March 11 and caused a serious nuclear accident in history, affecting badly the Japanese utility Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO). The company reported a net loss record 11 billion euros (1.25 trillion yen) on Friday morning, well above the 9 billion expected by the Japanese press. It is the worst deficit recorded by a Japanese non-financial group. The earthquake and the tsunami have paralyzed much of its central activity based in Fukushima, a city northeast of the country now known worldwide. For more than two months in fact, at least four of six reactors on the site are stopped. Before the event, Tepco expected a net profit of 1 billion euros.

Another important announcement this morning by Tepco: Masataka Shimizu's resignation.It must be said that his handling of the crisis has been sharply criticized in Japan and the rest of the world. Particularly for its lack of transparency in the first moments following the disaster. He will be succeeded by Toshio Nishizawa, the current CEO of the group.

State utilities and banks to contribute

The future already looks difficult for TEPCO. The operator had to call for help from the Japanese government. In a request sent on 10 May at the Japanese government, the third largest producer of electricity in the Archipelago evokes an immediate need 8.7 billion euros. Very quickly, the Japanese government has responded, putting Tepco under its control and disclose its financial rescue plan."The purpose of this plan is not to bail Tepco, said Friday the Japanese Minister of Economy, but to ensure that victims are compensated properly," he commented.

TEPCO has indeed compensate the 85,000 victims of the nuclear accident payday advance. A bill that could total between 25 and 43 billion euros, according to local press. Thus the state ensures that dip into its funds and requires the efforts of other private electricity companies in the country. Even banks will tighten their belts: they have provided a loan of 1.4 trillion yen (11.7 billion euros) to Tepco are asked to waive a portion of their claims vis-à-vis the operator .

For its part, TEPCO must, of course, participate in a pinch.The group will include transfer of financial assets and properties in order to concentrate its resources on the production and distribution of electricity. In addition, the eight most senior executives of the company will also waive any compensation and personnel managers to ordinary workers, will also undergo substantial pay cuts.

In exchange, Tepco falls again

This Friday morning in Tokyo, the title has finished Tepco small increase of 0.54% before the results are published in the group. Since, in trade-off meeting at the New York Stock Exchange, the action Tepco listed on Wall Street tumbles 9.6% and is only worth 4.45 dollars. So since March 11, the title collapsed by 83%. Investors, cooled the past two months, do not see Tepco bounce soon.While its nuclear activity has melted, the group had to increase production at its thermal power plants to continue to supply the population. However, this has a cost of hydrocarbons, which could cost another 8.7 billion uros on the current tax year.

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At the opening this Friday, the Dow Jones revolves around the balance, 0.15% after clinching a few minutes of trading. The Standard & Poor's 500 does not move at 1361 points while the Nasdaq fold from 0.06% to 2871 points. Economic indicators fell this day emerged mixed.

Household consumption to menu

After finishing up the day, Wall Street reacted little to the various macroeconomic indicators on the agenda Friday. Household consumption has caught up. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, spending rose 0.6%, the ninth consecutive month of increase, after rising 0.9% in February (revised from 0.7%).

Inflation accelerated for the fourth straight month the U.S., according to the price index associated with household consumption expenditure (PCE), released Friday in Washington.It reached 1.8% yoy, while she was still only 1.0% in November

But the growth of economic activity in the Chicago area slowed slightly more than expected, according to the index released Friday Thursday by the trade association ISM, which stood at 67.6 for April.

At 3:55 p.m., the second estimate of the index of consumer confidence in April, awarded by the University of Michigan, will be unveiled.

Merck, Chevron and Caterpillar publish their results

On the corporate side, Chevron (-0.84% ​​to 107.90 U.S. dollars) has published better than expected results in the first quarter. Net income group share was up 36% year on year to 6.2 billion dollars in the first quarter.

The manufacturers of construction equipment Caterpillar (2.37% to 115.33 dollars) has issued an earnings per share up 411% at 1.84 dollar.The turnover at 12.949 billion dollars, increased by 57%. The group revised its forecast for 2011 up. It expects sales of between 52 and 54 billion dollars against 50 billion previously.

Goodyear (9.92% to 17.81 dollars) on Friday issued a first quarter earnings four times higher than Wall Street expectations, thanks to strong demand.

Blackberry sells more than 15% yesterday after warning on its results.The Canadian group Research In Motion (RIM), maker of multimedia phone BlackBerry, has announced Thursday that its earnings forecasts for the current quarter, published on March 24 last, had to be revised downwards because of disappointing sales.

Merck (+0.14% to 35.82 dollars) announced a net profit in the first quarter more than tripled over the same period last year, which was impacted by costs of merger with Schering Plough. It amounts to $ 1.04 billion. The pharmaceutical group has slightly raised its annual forecast.

The groupeMicrosoft (-2.06% to 26.16 dollars) is very guarded, after publication, on Thursday after the market close, with net income up 31% to 5.23 billion for the third quarter shifted its fiscal year. A performance that does not stop him being left behind parApple (0.79% to 349.50 dollars).Based on the number of shares and excluding special items, earnings amounts to 61 cents, above the 56 cents expected by analysts. The turnover shown up 10% to 16.43 billion, despite the climate of "mixed" for the PC market.

Analysts had anticipated a pleasant surprise in the first quarter for Publicis. They were right. But they expected that the group displays a better advertising revenue. Publicis has posted organic growth of 6.5% in the first quarter to 1.286 billion euros, against a consensus of 6.7%.

An Unusually, this performance is due to the good performance of Latin America (organic growth up 8.7% in the first quarter), supported by Brazil (+20.1%), U.S. USA (+8.4%) and Europe (+6.2%) boosted by France (+8.2%). In contrast, the Asia-Pacific is growing only by 1.5% due to the earthquake in Japan and floods in Australia. China limits the damage with a growth of 8.2%. "Our exposure in Japan is low.The earthquake and tsunami that struck countries, such as the revolts that took place in the Middle East, will negatively impact any of our forecasts for 2011, "said Maurice Levy, Publicis chairman. The boss of the advertising group is also stayed very evasive on the subject, merely indicate that "a 5% growth in sales in 2011 would be a very conservative forecast."

"We outperform the market by 2011"

Thanks to the good performance of China, Brazil, but also Russia and India, growth in emerging countries amounted to 11.4% in the first quarter. Digital activities alone represent 28.2% of Group revenue (against 27% in 2010). "We do not show much innovation and therefore continue to invest in growth markets such as digital and emerging" quips Maurice Levy.Digital activities and represent emerging elsewhere 48.3% of Group revenue in the first quarter "in line with the group's objective is to achieve 65% of its income on these two segments," says he .

The advertising market, the subsidiary of Publicis, ZenithOptimedia, has yet reviewed this week down its forecast for investment growth in 2011 to 4.2% against 4.6% due to the disaster in Japan and uprisings in several countries Arab. But that does not diminish the confidence of Maurice Levy. "Advertisers have not stopped their campaign, assures the President of Publicis. We found no concern on their part. Their primary concern is the growth, not cost reduction. "

A trust that is found when talking about the second quarter. "The second quarter looks good.The year 2011 will be for its good or very good, "said President of Publicis. We outperform the market in 2011. Obviously, the soaring price of raw materials encourages companies to protect their margins. It may therefore be a risk cutoff of investment from advertisers. But the future is growth. "

Future and it is precisely at Publicis issue, that of Maurice Levy, whose mandate expires Dec. 31, 2011 will be extended. But the president still has not set a date or given any indication as to his successor. "My priority is Publicis. I will remain the necessary time. "

Take action publicly traded group neither too small nor too large, but rather the media. Shake it skillfully through several transactions not too discreet. Let the rumor thrive … When the market this action starts to boil, enjoy.

This technique of "tea" – a form of manipulation, of course – may well be that the action was lively Euro Disney in recent weeks. In February, the stock suddenly more than doubled to more than 9 euros, in trading volumes amazing (up to 4 low fee cash advance.5% stake in one sitting). He still traded around 7.70 euros today.

The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) is conducting its investigation for several months. But according to our information, a track is preferred.That of a small company of algorithmic trading, based abroad, including the AMF has already crossed the name several times in similar surveys. The AMF is no comment.

Good news for consumers. The telecoms regulatory authority (Arcep) decided to require mobile operators to reduce the price charged for routing calls from a mobile network to another, said cost of call termination. Practical consequence, this decline should reduce future bills of consumers.

Wednesday, Arcep set the goal of reducing the cost of 14 cents per minute to 8 cents today at 1 January 2013. A reduction of 42%!

To get there, Constable Telecom requires a first down 2 cents, effective July 1, 2011, and 1 payday advance.5 cents in January 2012 and finally to 1 cent from 1 July 2012.

Since 2008, Arcep requires a steady decline in prices.This has enabled operators to launch tenders called "Abundance" with unlimited calls to certain times or to certain numbers selected by the subscriber.

This is still lower tariffs that allowed for some months to some operators to free calls from a landline to a mobile.

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Cancellations will travel faster than the revolutions themselves Arab. While the wind blows still timidly revolt in the Middle East, several of them noted a sharp drop in hotel bookings.

Jordan in particular, several sources said that cancellations had reached 50%. A tour operator confirms that in 3000 tourists who booked a trip in the coming months, 1200 had already annulled. Jean-Francois Rial, CEO of Voyageurs du Monde, a leading tour operator in France, also referred 50% of cancellations to the country. This situation is particularly worrying for a local economy where tourism represents 14% of GDP, with a turnover estimated at one billion dollars in 2010.

Syria is no exception.Ghassan Chahine, owner of Naya Tours agency in Damascus, said he registered 35-40% cancellations for peak tourist season which runs from March to May, mainly by Europeans. The Syrian Minister of Tourism Saadallah Agha al-Qala, has been forced to revise downward its objectives: "We do not expect an increase of over 11% to 12% of the number of tourists" against an average annual growth of 15% since the early 2000s.

"All in the same bag"

Tourism professionals in the Middle East denounced the confusion in the minds of Western tourists. "They are influenced by media coverage and put all countries in the Middle East in the same bag, do not differentiate one country from another," said Nabulsi Touhami, office of tourism in Jordan. Tourists have canceled their trips to all Arab countries. "

Jean-Francois Rial, "people are more worried about what might happen in other countries than those where the revolution is over. Is that King Abdullah will not jump, do as the king of Morocco does not have a problem, as Hu Jintao? ". Ghassan Chahine agrees: "People tend to think that the revolts are taking place across the region."

Hopes

Despite their concerns, industry professionals want to believe in an imminent improvement in the situation. "The perception of people change very quickly. It does not take much time before the booking for a country not resume, "says Sean Tipton of the Association of British tour operators.

Until the fears subside, tour operators could, like the Maghreb, betting promotions.Marmara, the leading destination Tunisia is already seeing the success of its offer a "pay for a given": "We found in March the level of bookings last year, with 8000 departures scheduled within a month," explained Le Figaro Florian Vighier, its director general.

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After two sluggish years, the hospitality industry, took over the colors. A study of European Statistician, Eurostat, published on Monday, 1.6 billion overnight stays were booked in 2010 in various hotels of the countries of the European Union. This figure, an increase of 2.8% compared to the number of bookings recorded in 2009, followed two years of decline. The number of nights spent in hotels – for leisure trips as business – had fallen by 3.7% in 2009 compared to 2008, already bad year for the hotel because bookings were down by 0, 3% over 2007.

The real dynamic recovery has been felt at the end of the first half of 2010. Between January and April, the number of overnight stays increased at an annual rate of 1.7% over the same period last year.Between May and August, the trend has accelerated up to 2.6% growth. Finally, the last quarter, the increase was 5.1%.

France in fourth position

The number of overnight stays increased in most European countries. The highest increases were registered in Estonia (+14.1%), followed by Latvia (+11.6%), Lithuania (11.1%) and Malta (+11%). Five European countries however have earned on their own 70% of bookings cheap business cards. Spain leads with 268 million hotel nights, a score increase of 6.8% compared to 2009. Italy follows with 245 million overnight stays, although this result shows a decline of 0.8% over the previous year.Germany totaled 229 million bookings – up 5.8% – and then France (196 million, +2.4%) and finally the United Kingdom (166 million down 2.1%).

More foreigners

Sign of better economic health, the number of nights spent in hotels by people from other countries is rising sharply. It increases by 5.1% when the stays booked by nationals grow only 1.1%. 45% of nights spent in hotels have been by non-residents of the country. Estonia, Latvia (75%), Greece (74%), Austria (72%) and Bulgaria, are the states that received the largest number of foreigners in their residences. France has recorded 66 million room nights booked by non-residents, or 33% of the total. A score increase of 3% compared to 2009.

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If this hand a little in every sense on tax reform – the removal of the shield and the reform of the ISF – "is that we have great ideas. Sunday invited Grand Jury RTL-LCI-Le Figaro ", the Minister of Economy has expressed that he prefers: taxing income from property rather than the stock. But Christine Lagarde outlined above reframed the debate. Because of the ISF, abandoned by most of the neighboring countries of France, "of course he has people who are leaving … We must be stopped to create an illusion that tax." "There is a requirement of fair taxation, fiscal balance and prioritize investment to remain a country of innovation," she insisted.

Alignment with Germany

Therefore, is "we struggle against the excesses of the ISF, or we invent a new tax of Heritage". A conference to be held March 3, "prune a few branches."In other words, the meeting will put some order in the proposals that go all-out on the subject. The next day, the Court of Auditors will report on the Franco-German comparison, "which will work to harmonize with our neighbor, friend and rival."

On the issue of public finances, the Minister of Economy has been very strong. "We need strict discipline to keep the goals of deficit reduction." France has pledged that the deficit reached 6% this year, 4.2% in 2012 and finally 3% in 2013. Recalling that the process of non-replacement of staff on two retiring continued and government spending (excluding interest expense of debt and pensions) were frozen, Christine Lagarde nonetheless argued that "if must take additional steps to meet our commitments, we will! ".While saying he was "no question of a general increase of taxes."

The minister has in any case more than ever on a 2% growth this year. "I am very firm on my prediction," she said – certainly to the attention of some experts who find this figure too ambitious. Based on the confidence indices in industry and in services, "I am confident that growth in the first quarter 2011 will be significantly higher than the last quarter of 2010 (which did not exceed 0.3%, a figure which had disappointed). Finally, the Minister of the Economy "hopes to below the 4 million unemployed this year."

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