why are they still advocating the euro and the eurozone will ask the french finance minister madame christine. to the london stock exchange says france will be next on the list of bond investors when they're finished with portugal and spain but despite claims france's deficit is higher than anyone realizes many experts say paris has nothing to worry about for now the figures are hopeful the country's deficit is about seven percent which is to be lowered to just three percent in a couple years. with such positive dynamics no wonder french finance minister christine lagarde was named one of the best in the european union. thank you very much for being with us on the show and welcome to moscow. i know you had a chat with with finance minister could. a new arrival to the what were the

first things that you started to talk about. problems or some nice things he told me how nice it was to see me yet again. a little bit here and i told him that i was ever so pleased to see him yet again we were you know we have a very very good and longstanding relationship this morning when i gave the talk the most of ceremony said you've been in the job for such a long time i'm not sure it's a compliment sir. but it has given me a chance to work a lot with. say that is a very very good thing do you do you generally enjoy coming to moscow i love coming to moscow really even though you know what even in winter this is even in winter and i love the snow and us saying that. it creates a lot of problem in paris but seems to be so used to the snow that it. makes

traffic not as complicated as in paris i can tell you well you should say thank you to moscow authorities it's not the snow it's them that that try keeping it keeping immoral as normal for visitors like here from viet. nam now let's talk about finance. the one of the main news for everybody not only for for for a financial experts was a was actually count on them who called for a social revolution against french banks and he said better than seven from december the people should withdraw their money from banks this didn't happen but what was your personal attitude to your current and as revolution that i think everyone should play to their skills this skill is clearly to be a fantastic soccer player football player and a dumb thing that you should expand beyond your area of skills that was my

immediate reaction on the merits of it. i have to say that the financial industry relies on several factors one of which is trust and our job as members of government anywhere in the world is to make sure the trust is warranted that it is respected and to do that we need to put in place rules principles sanctions if the rules are not respected and the authorities but can investigate determine if venture breach and apply the same passions and that's what we're trying to do at the g twenty levels for instance we do that together russia participates france participates and we need to have those rules so that the people that actually save . trust the banks and the financial institutions to actually keep and mudge savings feel confortable with all that so we have

a responsibility as members of government to make sure that the rules are there they are respected and that those who do not respect the rules actually are sentient france is one of the most socially active countries of the people of france live on sea and i know it gives you. probably hard times when when when when things like that happen but on the other hand don't you feel that this is good that this is positive that the people of your country not only you the girl but also the people feel their responsibility they want to do something about what's happening in a country in the in the finance they want to control the government it's hard for you but is it good or bad i think it's good or should be good do you like it well we've that we've we've had a democratic system in place for centuries and you know democracy is about checks and balances give and take and clearly we are responsible and accountable to the

people of france and it's only fair that we should you know do the best we can and then go back to the next election and be either confirmed or denied at the level of confidence that was just a foid the fact that we are in position to set the rules and make sure they are respected but you know i'll take an example president sarkozy was very keen to number one restoril the public finances of france number to reform the countries so that it is competitive. to become tentative you have to do two things put more work in the economy put more capital in the economy to put more work in the economy you need to extend the working lives a bit and that's how we reformed the pension system and that did not please everybody because when you tell people that we all have to work a little bit longer some of them don't like it so there was a lot of give and take

a lot of consultation a lot of discussions people took the streets we had you know hundreds of thousands of people taking the street to express their views but at the end of the day the parliamentary process is the one that actually sets the final rules and it's for us to make sure that it is applied so france at the end of the day reformed its pension system which is a good thing are you mentioned the g twenty francis currently currently cheering the g eight and g twenty and your country is known as an advocate of a totally new financial system a global financial system that should wrister restore conditions for a sustainable and balanced economic growth well what are the concrete french proposals concerning this there this new system i'll take two examples one in the monitor a system of the moment we have

a system that does not work properly they are erratic variation of currencies and predictable in the main and that leads a lot of capital to flow in and out particularly of emerging markets we need to have more visibility more predictability and to that end clearly we need to organize financial safety nets that operate on a regional level but that are properly called a native at the international level. we need to sync about a reserve currency that would be more balanced that would have a sufficient number of currencies to balance out the risks and clearly those special drawing rights that were mentioned by keynes in his initial sinking is one avenue that we could explore with the i.m.f.

that's an option you know her be a member of keynes. here wouldn't be where there is no momentum is there and then i think some of his proposals are very interesting and very good i'm not a keynesian. fanatic no not at all. you know i'm asking that in on the monitor recently in relation to currencies in particular some of his views to arrive at a basket of currency that could give rise to the special drawing rights is something that we need to have in mind particularly in times of crisis i think that that could that should be envisaged so that's one example second example in the field of raw materials for instance when you look at the variations of the price of wheat when you look at the variations of the price of aluminum or the process of copper there is something which is not only

related to anticipation of crops to risk of drought to volume of copper of volume of aluminum being made there's more to it and i sing that we should have more transparency on the transactions which we don't. we should have more understanding of. the trading that takes place and we don't have much of that and we should really investigate whether the regulations in place to rule the functioning of these markets are proper to avoid the fundamentals of either bubbles or rarity of physical material so i think that's another example where i believe that international corporation can actually help and it would not just help the markets it would help the farmers it would help the countries that actually produce those for materials and maybe it would direct a bit more money to real investment the one that creates value the one that

creates jobs rather than the one that shul's speculation are you looking for for any support or for your plans for your reform here in russia or russia's term worship service these days with a new security system in europe. and this thing that we improve in relation to the financial world in relation to the global governance will have to be done with russia will have to be done with all the key players because if you leave one big spot of the world out of the equation. then you cannot achieve the goal because there will be you know flows. unregulated unsupervised. unpredictable capitals that would that will go in that direction so we have to work together and we do so happily with russia says

christine like daff the finance minister of the republic of france spotlight will be back shortly after break so stay with us then go. to. the only next to the border of the compass egypt but also on the border of peace and war. they're responsible not only for themselves. but also for their loved ones . are ready to take any risk. and.

chosen from among many. he was given a clear cut mission. a mission he successfully accomplished. became the first ever. space. one of the best known persons in the whole world. all his thoughts were focused on flight. could he ever think that his life's work would cost him his last. one happened in those few seconds. and what she could see these sealed barrels still cold. yuri gagarin. this is a table from the u.s. embassy in colombo they talk about here an apparent june seventh incident of extrajudicial executions the military according to the press that on that day that killed nine guerrillas in combat with desecration by instructs young criminal and

their strongly suggest however that the nine were executed by the army and then dressed in military fatigues. to. explain how you know this kind of phenomenon where bodies are dressed up as guerrillas and presented as killed in action and this and this the idea that you need to produce bodies actually encouraged paramilitary collaboration this is a cia document central intelligence agency they knew about these activities they knew they were happening they knew about links to paramilitary groups and yet u.s. aid continue to flow out. the. welcome back to spotlight and i'm just

a reminder that my guest on the show today is. the french finance minister in. your own countries continue to feel the effects of the global creative grind greece is debt crisis was the start of the demeanor with fact in the you resume ireland his recently become the second e.u. country to be bailed out by the e.c.b. and the international monetary fund to receive the eighty five billion whew a bailout the irish government had to resort to see the austerity plans include incur tale in the minimum wage and cutting public service jobs the plans went to mass protests with thousands of people to. true to the streets of dublin there are fears that italy the third largest here is an economy might start trying in the same direction as greece and ireland rome has to service billions of debt in the first quarter of next year with bond rates already raising the cost of it down and

is likely to believe another country is threatened by this sovereign different demeanor fact i spain portugal and belgium with so many countries are trees been pulled into different races doubts about the future of the single currency and of even the south have grown. in a told worth i'm not mistaken president sarkozy and chancellor merkel struck a deal and yet are now and that debt resolution mechanism that might eventually force private lenders to take losses in case of government debt crisis when a when do you think there's a mechanism maybe a plan it point number one we want that mechanism to apply exactly in line with the i.m.f. rules and principles of private sector involvement because we have to have

all the lead lenders of the public sector whether it's the european fond of the international monetary fund operate under similar principles because you cannot have one being more rigorous than the others why because we have decided to work in partnership with the i.m.f. so in other words when we have a problem of assistance to a country let's stay island for instance which had the difficulties we decided that we would go together the european financial. pond stability fund and the i.m.f. we need to have similar terms and conditions we cannot play in other words the lenders of the country itself cannot play one against the other it has to be similar point number one point number two it cannot be a standard across the board straitjacket it has to be evaluated on

a case by case basis and on the basis of the sustained sustainability of the situation both from a debt point of view and from an economic point of view as well when we review the situation well you mention ireland some economists say that and in case of such countries as greece and ireland the only way for them is to default on their debt and make russia did back in nineteen ninety eight well why if it worked with russia it won't work with. other european countries why why is europe insisting on bailing them out it's a two way street and that's why we believe that it can work we ask from the country whether it's greece or whether it's ireland what we call strict conditionalities in other words we ask them to take very hard stiff rigorous measures to rein in

their public finance so what we do is we take the estimated grows the potential for growth the demand that is addressed to the country from the rest of the world we look at the measures they are prepared to take and they are courageous enough to take to parliament. cutting public finances reducing the number of civil servants extending the volume of work in the economy facilitating the economic activity and them on the basis of those set of parliament has then we say this is sustainable and we will lend you over such period of time at such interest rate but not enough we need to monitor and follow up with the country because neither the i of earth nor the europeans together want to lend you know freehand we need to check at every installment of the loan of the measures that were promised are

actually delivered and that it is performed on the ground do you think that spain and portugal will be the next to live at the expense of the french and the german taxpayer not at all no not at all are you sure it's this is not going to help i am we can take we can put them back you why am i looking carefully at what portugal is going to do it in terms of public finances strategy quick foreigners structural efforts and looking at what spain has just announced a few days ago more privatization cuts yet again restoring public finances in the way it does and i think that those two countries have really received loud and clear the message that they have to put their house in order which they are doing and we collectively members of the eurozone are very firm that who will support the

efforts in one of your interviews you said i quote we are keen to keep the moment to rezone and the currency is strong alive and kicking and quite well the european one tree union survive a chain of debt crisis an existing forum. all over the world there is currently an issue of the sovereign debt ok so everyone from the united states to japan lucky to not including russia because you public debt is kept at a minimum. but there's some say you've heard that you've had your crisis in here but all over the world as i said there is a sovereign debt issue which in my view is a clear message that all over the world in those countries we have to be very very strict at managing our public finances at restoring the trend of a ratio of debt to g.d.p. and reduce our deficit but that's the point that is being made very clearly now

within the eurozone what we need to do is to reinforce our economic governance our economy government so that the messages that we're giving are loud and clear straightforward and there is no ambiguity or uncertainty as to what we are doing but let's make no mistake the euro is a solid and strong currency in our remember ten years ago the euro was launched at the rate of one point sixteen euro to the dollar it is now the range of one thirty ish to the dollar so not only has it remained. strong but it has increased in value relative to other currencies so it's not the euro or such it's sovereign that and government all over the world that have to be very sensitive and careful about how we manage public line and i

understand you like the euro this way you like the euro to be strong but if we talk not of french interests but eventually of the indirect countries wouldn't it be healthier for those. problem economies to quit the euro zone to devalue the currencies and end it in this way to support the economy but. is it possible for for europe to withstand the loss of a couple of small economies no quitting and visaged no book and no quoting. ok now is there any possibility that france can be next to fall in the european that debt crisis no no so are you sure we are taking the measures that are necessary when other measures and we are following our policies very strictly and very rigorously

and the french banks they are said to be to be to maybe the next in the line after italy. what are your preparations what are you doing what are the specific measures that you're taking care can you be more specific in the. the friendly banks are solid they were the crisis quite well we've had no bankruptcy we've had no bank run we've had no such thing as occurred in other places no default no nurse things of that nature and that they are very strictly regulated and supervised we have a central potential authority which is really taking its toll sq very very seriously and i have no concern in that regard ok air of only one minute left on this show and i and i may really don't know where i'll start there are many

questions i still want to ask you ok now now let's go with this one let's let's talk about the missed trends the the two helicopter carriers that that russia is being ready to to buy from france how important is it for you and the when do you think this this deal may be complete you know there is a saying in english that. it's not over until the fat lady sings. so when a deal is a negotiation it's in negotiation you don't talk about it but clearly it would be a very strong symbol of the very close relationship and the partnership. the twin friends with russia and we really want that partnership to take full expression not just in exchanging musicians and dancers and painters and writers not just having its roots in the history of all two countries that have been so close over the years but also in the industries of the future you're being

superstitious they're not talking about the future deal though you never talk you never talk about something that is to be born so so so all the finance ministers a superstitious is there. this is part of your job ok thank you very much see them and them and just a reminder that my guest here on the show today was french finance minister christine legarde and that's an hour from all the screen spotlight will be back with more first one comments on what's going on in and outside bush up until then stay on r.t. and take care.

no christmas break for the u.s. senate until the nuclear cuts treaty is ratified this as democrats wrestle to harness republican support for one of president obama's most crucial foreign policy deals also. the biggest naval forward deal between russia and a nato member state is on the horizon as moscow looks set to buy a helicopter carrier from frogs. a russian girl accused of spying whilst working for a british and paid has been released on bail and i've spoken to and i'll bring you all the details cheering the program. and you will read through. than expected since the streets hoyle will have more business news in twenty minutes.

who are welcome to you live from our headquarters here in central moscow this is our team with me and you see now way it's six pm here in the russian capital ten am in washington where the white house is confident the u.s. senate won't enjoy for christmas until the nuclear cuts treaty with russia is ratified democrats believe they'll manage to get the nine republican votes necessary to win the majority but aren't you going to cheer can reports with the vote expected on wednesday it seems some are still trying to stall the deal. in terms of substance there is nothing that can stop the new start from being routed fight key questions concerns whatever senators had during the course of the past eight months of hearings were all addressed i do think that we have as i mentioned done our homework with regard to the new start treaty and that it is. in a good situation to ratify it in the slam duck session it has.