Hollande pledges to help Greece fulfil bailout reforms

French President Francois Hollande on Friday pledged to help Greece carry out its bailout reforms by modernising its state and tax administration.

“France must continue to stand by Greece,” Hollande told reporters after signing a strategic partnership with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to provide French management expertise.

The deal in particular aims to provide French expertise to Athens in its fight against tax evasion.

On his first visit to Athens since 2013, Hollande praised Greeces determination to stay the course of reform.

“We must listen to Greek officials when they tell us that they want to go all the way,” he said.

The French leader said such efforts were instrumental in eliminating talk of a Greek exit from the eurozone – or Grexit – that dominated headlines in the summer.

In contrast, he noted pointedly, it was talk of a British exit from the EU — or Brexit — that would occupy European leaders in December.

Brexit, Hollande said, was a “serious hypothesis” that could not be ignored.

Hollande was in the process of addressing the Greek parliament, becoming the third French president to speak before the chamber after General Charles de Gaulle in 1963 and Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008.

The socialist French president is one of the few European leaders to have unabashedly lent support to young leftist Tsipras during months of fraught creditor talks earlier this year.

On his arrival Thursday, Hollande recalled the “bold decisions” taken by Tsipras, who in July agreed to more public spending cuts in return for a three-year, 86-billion-euro ($96-billion) EU bailout to prevent Greece crashing out of the eurozone.

“We did everything, France and Greece… for Greece to remain in Europe and that Europe show solidarity with Greece.

“And today, that is the message that I will continue to carry.”

He has also pleaded for a renegotiation via an interest deferral of Greek debt, which is around 200 percent of GDP.

Hollande said he supported a Greek request to the European Union for a credit extension of 330 million euros in 2016 to cope with the influx of migrants, with more than 500,000 people arriving in Greece since January.

Hollande and Tsipras talked for nearly two hours at an official dinner Thursday night, said Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, one of the members of parliament accompanying the French president.

Hollande has also pledged to encourage the French to invest in Greece.

France “is already the fourth largest foreign investor in Greece, more than a hundred companies are present there”, Hollande said Thursday.

“We want them to invest more.”

[AFP]