Tulle sounds like a pleasant enough little place. A pretty market town in central France, it is in the heart of some fine farming country, and has a fine old cathedral. Still — and meaning no disrespect to its 15,000 people — a few years in charge of its parking permits and refuse collection hardly seems like the best qualification for dealing with potentially the greatest economic crisis that Europe has faced since the end of World War II.
Come May, however, that is precisely what its former mayor may have to do.
In the upcoming French presidential election, the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande is virtually certain to take power from the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Merkozy double act that has been managing the euro-zone crisis will suddenly become the Merllande or the Hokel, or whatever the wags of the bond markets decide to call it. But Hollande’s only executive experience is eight years as mayor of the tiny town of Tulle.
As president, he will be a catastrophe for the European economy. He has no experience of running anything, he is pushing an old-fashioned borrow-and-spend policy, he will have a poisonous relationship with Germany’s Angela Merkel, and he has shown no sign of understanding the scale of structural change France needs.
As he takes charge, the euro may be entering a summer of maximum danger.
