Steinbrück's 100-Day Plan Has French Accent

SPIEGEL ONLINE - International - France 2013-08-29

Somewhere, millions of French voters are smiling wryly. Having given unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy the boot last year in favor of François Hollande, France was expecting big things. Instead, the newcomer's tactics of trying to spend his way out of trouble have backfired, with unemployment soaring, factories shutting down and some of the people who were supposed to pay for Hollande's policies -- the rich -- deciding they have had enough and fleeing the country to escape the sky-high taxes. And now Germany, it seems, has its own Hollande in the form of Peer Steinbrück.