为描述德国总理安吉拉•默克尔（Angela Merkel）和法国总统尼古拉斯•萨科齐（Nicolas Sarkozy）在经济危机期间为团结欧洲所做的努力，媒体曾经象征性地将二者联姻，戏称这一对为“默科齐”（Merkozy）。现在媒体同样是揉和人名，创造了一个新词，用来悲观地描述了默克尔和法国新任社会党总统弗朗索瓦•奥朗德之间的关系。这个词就是“默徳”（Merde）。

    奥朗德将于5月16日正式上任。他将是二战以来第二位掌握法国大权的社会党人士。他的想法既大胆又具有破坏性——例如通过向富人征税来盘活法国财政，以及通过雇用更多的政府雇员来降低失业率。为此备感担忧的人群不仅包括48%支持萨科齐的选民，还包括那些同时反对这两位候选人，因而拒绝投票的民众。相比较而言，市场似乎对奥朗德准备在另一领域实施的计划更为不安——即他承诺领导一个“新欧洲”。奥朗德在他的竞选活动中声称，“欧洲并不是由德国说了算”。他竞选主题的一个主要元素就是打着欧洲多个难兄难弟的旗号谴责德国的紧缩政策。他甚至还断言自己在当选法国总统后的出访第一站就要去柏林，“重新谈判”倾注了“默科齐”大量时间的财政契约。

    为了避免这样尴尬的会面，默克尔曾帮助萨科齐竞选，而且在接下来的几个月中，她也会忙得焦头烂额。奥朗德深知自己还有很长一段路要走。但是在这个过程中，他将认识到，无论他如何虚张声势，德国仍是大权在握。德国的经济远比法国健康，而且默克尔的支持率也很高。虽然目前有人质疑她的紧缩计划，但她迅速地将这一辞令改为“增长契约”。紧缩计划中的一些灵活性说不定该还真的有利于欧洲经济的健康——因为在西班牙这样一些国家，经济危机的幕后推手主要是房地产价格而不是国债，而且这些国家迫切需要调整经济增长点。与此同时，这项欧洲紧缩试验若想获得成功，实施某种形式的预算管制似乎是唯一可行的出路。从政治角度来看，默克尔采取这样的立场毫不吃力，而奥朗德则比较困难。

    随着奥朗德开始其在法国国家政府的历练，他的双鬓可能会变得比巴拉克•奥巴马更花白。首先，虽然他承诺法国将于2013年达到欧盟财政紧缩政策3%的赤字目标，并在2017年底达到预算收支平衡，但他并没有说明如何实现这一目标。同时，法国国债，即法国政府为了支付开支所借的贷款，预计将于2013年底达到国内生产总值的90%。而奥朗德曾表示2013年将是法国经济回归强势增长的年份。然而，尤其鉴于英国和西班牙经济的二次探底，大多数经济预测并不像奥朗德描绘的那么美好。

    由于法国与德国一道受困于欧元区，因此，如果奥朗德希望获得欧洲的主导权同时保留法国社会模式的精华部分，他的主要目标应该是提高法国的竞争力。然而在这一点上，他仍没有拿出具体的方案。虽然法、德两国工人的生产力水平不相上下，但是法国的出口市场一直在欧洲垫底。此外，法国慷慨的社会福利也造成了劳动力市场的失调。工会和国家法律的过度保护使得企业难以解雇不合格的工人——这也意味着，被开除的工人也能拿到由企业或国家发放的丰厚补助，某些情况下还能拿双份。奥朗德还希望将退休年龄调回60岁。退休年龄从60岁推迟到62岁是萨科奇结构性改革中唯一有意义的尝试，因此奥朗德的这一想法似乎遥不可及。

    "Merkozy" is what the press dubbed the symbolic marriage of fortune between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, describing their efforts to hold Europe together through economic crisis. Now a new portmanteau has been coined, mashing the names -- and pessimistically describing the relationship -- between Merkel and France's new socialist president, Francois Hollande, as "Merde."

    On May 16th, when Hollande is inaugurated, he will be only the second socialist to run the country since World War II. His promises are bold and disruptive -- including restoring France's budget by taxing the rich and reducing unemployment by hiring more government workers. This deeply worries the 48% of the French voters who cast a ballot for Sarkozy, or those who protested both candidates by refusing to vote at all. Markets, by contrast, seemed more troubled by Hollande's plans on another front -- his promises to lead a "New Europe." "Germany doesn't decide for all of Europe," Hollande proclaimed on the campaign trail. A major element of his campaign narrative has been to fight against German austerity on behalf of Europe's beleaguered economies. He has even asserted that his first French presidential trip will be to Berlin, to "renegotiate" the fiscal compact that took "Merkozy" so long to pass.

    Merkel, who offered to help Sarkozy campaign to avoid this uncomfortable meeting, will have her hands full over the next few months. Hollande knows he has a lot to prove. But what he's about to learn is that no matter his posturing, Germany still holds much of the power. Germany's economy remains significantly healthier than France's, and Merkel's approval ratings are high. Though her austerity programs are now in question, she's been quick to shift her own rhetoric to a "growth compact." Some flexibility with respect to austerity may actually be healthy for Europe -- certain countries, like Spain, have economic woes driven more by housing prices than national debt, and could desperately used a shift in focus toward growth. At the same time, however, some form of budget discipline appears to be the only sane path forward if the European experiment is to succeed. Politically, that's an easy stand to take for Merkel. It will be harder for Hollande.

    Hollande's hair may yet go whiter than Barack Obama's as he begins to collect experience in France's national government. First, though he promised that France will hit the 3% deficit target in the EU's fiscal compact in 2013 and will achieve a balanced budget by 2017, he hasn't explained how he will do this. Meanwhile, France's public debt, the amount of money borrowed by the French government to pay its bills, is projected to reach 90% of GDP by 2013. This is the year that Hollande says France will return to strong growth. But particularly with the U.K. and Spain in a double-dip recession, most economic forecasts aren't as rosy as Hollande's.

    Locked into the euro alongside Germany, Hollande's main goal, if he wants to lead Europe and preserve the best parts of France's social model, should be to increase French competitiveness. Again, he has yet to lay out a specific plan. Although worker productivity is similar in Germany and France, the French export market is among the weakest in Europe. Further, France's generous welfare state has led to a dysfunctional labor market, where excessive protection by labor unions and state laws make it hard for incompetent workers to be fired -- and mean that even those who are fired wind up getting paid off handsomely by either their company, the state, or in some cases both. Hollande's idea to rollback the retirement age to 60, after Sarkozy pushed it to 62 in one of his only meaningful attempts at structural reform, seems wildly out of touch.

    尽管奥朗德治理法国经济的方案十分模糊，而且在某些情况下缺乏可信度，但是他能拉到选票的原因不仅在于他反对萨科齐，而且还因为他大力宣扬欧洲经济增长。在某些方面，他对时机的把握恰到好处。去年秋天欧元区危机于发时，法、德应对危机的措施就是推行一揽子紧缩方案；但是支出削减进一步削弱了多个欧洲国家的增长态势，因此要求出台强有力的刺激方案的呼声越来越高。奥朗德希望借此东风将自己推上经济增长冠军的宝座。为实现这一目标，他想到了三个办法，其中之一——利用欧洲投资银行（European Investment Bank）的资金来促进增长——也几乎得到了欧盟领导、包括德国领导的一致支持。

    奥朗德另外两个办法对于德国来说就更不是什么好消息了。首先，它希望发行欧洲债券，“不是为了集中债务，而是为了给工业基础设施项目融资”。默克尔的问题在于，如果欧洲所有国家的债务成为了欧元区的债务，那么德国最终将更为直接地为希腊和西班牙经济危机买单。多数观察人士认为，如果欧盟要从货币联盟向更深层次的联盟发展，这一幕迟早会发生。然而问题并不在于发生的可能性，而是在于发生的时间。任何一个德国政客，包括面临2013年大选的默克尔，都不愿意在财政监管和平衡到位之前讨论这个话题。但是鉴于全欧日益高涨的民族主义情绪，实施财政监管的可能性越来越小。因此尽管奥朗德可以通过正面施压来迫使默克尔更为积极地去寻求启动欧洲债券的方式（智囊团和各成员国央行已经提出了建议），但他难以凭一己之力实现这个目标。默克尔守着财大气粗的德国，掌握了全部的主动。

    奥朗德还希望欧洲央行（ECB）像去年冬天一样将借贷对象由银行直接拓宽至政府。这个目标有着与欧洲债券相似的作用，即缓解欧洲多个病入膏肓的经济实体的债务负担。然而，这一做法的危险在于，它必然会为欧洲央行烙上政治印迹。欧洲央行董事会成员在多次讲话中都拿出了挡箭牌，称欧盟立法曾明确规定不允许欧洲央行救助政府。但是羸弱的欧洲市场表明，欧洲央行的银行救助行动也未能解决欧元区危机背后的结构性经济问题。虽然欧洲领导人可以修改对欧洲央行的授权，而且这正符合奥朗德的心意，但是德国一直在全球的瞩目之下依然对这一问题避而不谈——主要原因还在于与当前形势密切相关的德国内部政治问题。

    继任伊始，奥朗德必然专注于“面子工程”，藉此而来的热点口号也会层出不穷——而且他也有可能反对德国关于统领货币联盟组织的人选，即德国财政部长沃尔夫冈•朔伊布勒。但是以下几点可以让市场放宽心。第一，希腊最近的大选产生了多位反欧盟的政客，而这使得默克尔和奥朗德至少在拓展欧盟这一议题上站在一条战线上。第二，奥朗德也会因为国内的家事而忙得不可开交——例如极右翼反移民势力的抬头，高失业率（尤其是法国青年的失业问题），以及商界对债务评级下调事件的强烈反对。紧锣密鼓的日程会让他无暇与默克尔之间发生不必要的摩擦。就最乐观的一面来看，奥朗德对德国紧缩政策的反对甚至可能会转化成有效的妥协，而德国仍将占据上风。

    译者：翔

    Despite Hollande's ambiguous and, in some cases, dubious plans for managing the French economy, he was elected not just as an anti-Sarkozy vote, but because he talks a lot about European growth. In some ways, his timing couldn't be better. When the eurozone crisis broke last fall, the Franco-German crisis response was to push through an austerity package; but spending cuts have further undermined growth in several European economies, prompting a clamor for a more stimulative approach. Hollande hopes to seize the moment and frame himself as a champion of growth. He has three ideas for how to do this, one of which -- tapping the funds of the European Investment Bank to promote growth -- is supported almost unanimously by EU leaders, including those in Germany.

    Hollande's other two ideas are more unpalatable to Germany. First, he wants to create Eurobonds, "not to pool debts but to finance industrial infrastructure projects." Merkel's problem with this is that if all national debt becomes eurozone debt, Germany will essentially pay in a more direct way for Greek and Spanish economic woes. Most observers agree that this is what ultimately needs to happen if the European Union achieves its goal of becoming more than just a currency union. The question is not if, but when. No German politician, including Merkel, who faces reelection in 2013, wants to talk about the subject without other fiscal checks and balances in place. But additional fiscal checks seem increasingly unlikely, given nationalistic sentiments rising across Europe. So while Hollande might be able to put positive pressure on Merkel to be more aggressive in figuring out the various avenues with which to pursue Eurobonds (already think tanks and central banks are putting forth proposals), he can't create them alone. Merkel, with Germany's deep pockets, still holds all the cards.

    Hollande also wants the ECB to go beyond lending to banks, as it did last winter, and to lend directly to governments. The goal, similar to that of the Eurobonds, would be to ease the debt burdens of sick European economies. The danger is that such a move would inevitably force politics onto the ECB. In various speeches, ECB board members fall back on the idea that EU legislation clearly rules out the ECB's bailout of governments. But as Europe's weak markets have shown, the ECB's bank bailouts haven't addressed the structural economic problems behind the eurozone crisis. Though Europe's leaders could revise the ECB's mandate, as Hollande desires, the world has watched Germany skitter around this option -- in large part due to its own domestic political concerns that remain fully relevant today.

    In the beginning of his presidency, Hollande will be determined to "save face," which will likely lead to a lot of hot rhetoric -- and he may yet block Germany's pick to lead the group that runs the currency union, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. But markets should also be reassured on a few counts. First, after Greece's recent election, which resulted in more anti-European politicians, Merkel and Hollande are at least on the same side of the broader European debate. Second, Hollande will have his hands full at home -- with the rise of the anti-immigrant extreme right, and high unemployment, particularly among France's youth, and with a business community vigorously opposed to more debt downgrades. This crowded agenda will continuously divert him from picking unnecessary fights with Merkel. At best, Hollande's opposition to German austerity could even be channeled into productive compromises, with Germany still having the upper hand.