PARIS, June 24 (Reuters) – French President Francois
Hollande may have set himself up for a fall this week, as
Germany’s Angela Merkel shows no sign of yielding to his push to
provide more financing guarantees to stabilise the euro zone.

The Socialist leader has raised the stakes for a June 28-29
European Union summit with his drive for a bank deposit
guarantee scheme to protect euro zone savers and governments and
for steps towards mutualising debt and reviving growth.

PARIS, June 21 (Reuters) – France’s Socialists plan
unpopular welfare and civil service job cuts next year in an
effort to trim up to 30 billion euros from the deficit,
calculating that tax rises on the rich will convince the less
well off to accept their share of the pain.

President Francois Hollande won election last month
promising to rescue the nation’s finances and persuade a
sceptical Germany that growth, not austerity, was the key to
reviving the troubled euro zone’s economy.

PARIS (Reuters) – France will only sign up to a process of deeper economic integration in Europe if urgent measures to pull the euro zone out of crisis are agreed upon at the same time, European Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Tuesday.

Paris and Berlin are both determined to reach an accord at an end-June European Union summit to calm the raging euro zone crisis but they disagree on the process required to get there, Cazeneuve told Reuters.

PARIS (Reuters) – A month after making his European debut with a drive to mutualise the euro zone’s debts via joint bonds, French President Francois Hollande would settle for a pilot scheme of short-term “euro T-bills” for the time being, aides say.

But there is no evidence that the new Socialist French leader’s thinking is gaining any traction with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, despite support from the executive European Commission, Italy and Spain.

PARIS (Reuters) – French President Francois Hollande’s Socialists won a resounding parliamentary majority on Sunday, strengthening his hand as he presses euro zone paymaster Germany to support debt-laden states weighed down by austerity cuts and ailing banks.

The Socialist Party and its affiliates secured 307 seats in the parliamentary election runoff, according to the final count for mainland France, comfortably more than the 289 needed for a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.

PARIS (Reuters) – France began voting in a parliamentary run-off on Sunday expected to hand President Francois Hollande’s Socialist party a majority and bolster his position in legislative battles over euro zone crisis policy.

A clear majority reliant neither on opposition conservatives nor eurosceptic hard leftists, as opinion polls suggest, would be a boon as Hollande prepares legislation to raise taxes, adjust budget spending and ratify an EU fiscal discipline pact.

PARIS, June 17 (Reuters) – President Francois Hollande is on
track to win a Socialist bloc majority in France’s parliamentary
election run-off on Sunday that would bolster his position in
looming legislative battles over euro zone crisis policy.

A clear majority reliant neither on opposition conservatives
nor eurosceptic hard leftists, as opinion polls point to, would
be a boon as Hollande prepares legislation to raise taxes,
adjust budget spending and ratify an EU fiscal discipline pact.

PARIS (Reuters) – Determined to show voters he is not Angela Merkel’s doormat and convinced he is well positioned to get his way, French President Francois Hollande is discarding diplomatic codes as he resets relations with a politically weakened German government.

The Socialist is taking his own stand on solutions to the euro zone crisis where for years Paris stood alongside Berlin. He is building alliances with leaders in Rome and Madrid who back his challenge to German-imposed austerity.

PARIS (Reuters) – France wants the European Central Bank to have a stronger role in overseeing banks in the single currency bloc as part of a package of urgent reforms to increase financial stability in Europe, sources said on Wednesday.

Joint supervision of banks is one of the key issues to be discussed at a European Union leaders summit in late June that will focus on deepening financial and fiscal integration to bring the raging euro zone crisis under control.

PARIS (Reuters) – France said on Tuesday that it would support taking steps towards budgetary integration in Europe, as Berlin wants, but the first priority must be to agree urgent measures to solve the euro zone’s debt crisis.

Following talks in Paris with his German counterpart Michael Link, France’s European Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the issues could be worked on in parallel but a fiscal union could not be built until the current crisis has been brought under control.