Financial Times: Mr Lévy, thank you very much. One of the big stories at the moment is the weakening dollar, the very strong euro and the resurgence of the European economy. I wonder if you could talk to us about what you see happening in Europe right now.
Maurice Lévy: The weakening of the dollar is a real issue because it’s creating another burden on the economy. We already have a lot of issues with the cost of the social work, the social wages and the cost of labour which is very expensive. On top of this, we have the issues of productivity which is relatively low compared to the cost of production. And if you add to this another competition which is on the value of the dollar this is making really a tough burden on the European economy. There is one advantage which is obviously on oil because they are paying with a weak dollar and that is helping a little bit. But all in all, it is not good news for Europe. Particularly at the time where we see some good news. We see that Germany is starting to pick up. We were waiting for the awakening of Germany since years and it’s starting to happen. We see also that there has been some good news in France and unfortunately Q3 has been relatively bad in terms of growth but otherwise we were on our way to do 2.5 in growth which is something which didn’t happen. We see also some good news in Spain and Italy. So the fact that the dollar is so weak is something which can put a slowdown in the growth of the European economy. I don’t believe this situation will last and I’m quite hopeful that the dollar will strengthen or if it doesn’t, I think that the European Central Bank will have to take some action on interest rates in order to make the balance more even.

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