France is the only core euro-zone country to take advantage of the euro’s reserve currency status: Is it wrong?
The core euro-zone countries (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Finland) have the status of countries that issue a reserve currency (non-European investors invest little in the peripheral euro-zone countries). Among these core euro-zone countries, only France takes advantage of this reserve currency status by hav ing a high public debt and fiscal deficit. Is France wrong, or are the other core euro-zone countries wrong to not use their status as international reserve currency-issuing countr ies (as the United States and the United Kingdom do)? To be sure, France is able to finance its fiscal deficits at very low interest rates; But the risk of France slipping from the euro-zone core to the periphery must be considered . C ould international investors go without French debt and replace it with that of other euro-zone countries?