TPMDC

Angela Merkel

The outcome had been staring the world in the face for weeks, but Francois Hollande's weekend victory in the French elections nevertheless sent foreign markets plummeting, reflecting the fact that the Eurozone crisis is still a huge global concern, and that Nicholas Sarkozy's defeat adds an element of uncertainty to an already chaotic situation.

But the markets' visceral reaction to the election masks a more complicated reality. According to experts who've been watching the Eurozone mess unfold for years, the market panic doesn't suggest that the previous regime was on the right course, and fell victim to the impossible politics of austerity. Quite the opposite. Austerity was unpopular both because of the immediate burden it imposed on voters and because it was failing at its supposed purpose of restoring stability to the Eurozone. But pro-austerity forces remain strong both in Europe and around the world, and even a signal as clear as the elections in France or the collapse of the Dutch government last month might not convince them to reconsider, and that has potentially disastrous consequences for the global economy.

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