Did Sarkozy threaten to pull out of the euro?

Granted, this is the Guardian, quoting, El Pais, quoting anonymous sources, quoting Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, quoting Nicolas Sarkozy, but it still has to raise some eybrows at the European Central Bank: The startling threat was made at a Brussels summit of EU leaders last Friday, at which the deal to bail out Greece was ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Granted, this is the Guardian, quoting, El Pais, quoting anonymous sources, quoting Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, quoting Nicolas Sarkozy, but it still has to raise some eybrows at the European Central Bank:

Granted, this is the Guardian, quoting, El Pais, quoting anonymous sources, quoting Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, quoting Nicolas Sarkozy, but it still has to raise some eybrows at the European Central Bank:

The startling threat was made at a Brussels summit of EU leaders last Friday, at which the deal to bail out Greece was agreed, according to a report in El País newspaper quoting Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Zapatero revealed details of the French threat at a closed-doors meeting of leaders from his Spanish Socialist Party on Wednesday.

Sarkozy demanded "a compromise from everyone to support Greece … or France would reconsider its position in the euro," according to one source cited by El País. "Sarkozy went as far as banging his fist on the table and threatening to leave the euro," said one unnamed Socialist leader who was at the meeting with Zapatero. "That obliged Angela Merkel to bend and reach an agreement."

A different source who was at the meeting with Zapatero told El País that "France, Italy and Spain formed a common front against Germany, and Sarkozy threatened Merkel with a break in the traditional Franco-German axis."

El País also quotes Sarkozy as having said, according to another of those who met Zapatero, that "if at time like this, with all that is happening, Europe is not capable of a united response, then the euro makes no sense".

The euro fell to an 18-month low against the dollar today. 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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