jean-claude trichet, former ecb president, all around cool guy.ning. >> a pleasure. it's a pleasure to be with you. >> all right. we see the results of the election, the mainstream parties really getting shut out to some extent on one side emmanuel macron, on the other side we have marine le pen. we go to the second round. tell me your thoughts on the election and your thoughts on the second round that we'll be experien experiencing in a couple of weeks? >> i think what happened is historical. first, as you said, the governmental party -- that is something that's dramatic. never happened. second you have a young guy, 39 years old, coming number one in the first round. and he was totally unknown two years and to -- 2 1/2 years ago. it's really something that's equally extraordinary. then you have marine le pen showing that we really have the populism, protectionism, i would say you name it, but it's exactly the phenomenon we are seeing in the u.s. as well as the uk and that is something that is strong because le pen is in the second round. i would

with us is jean-claude trichet, former ecb president. have been talking about the fed and the eurozone. mr. trichet, thank you for joining us this morning. underpinning all of this is politics in france. when you read the polls, how surprised are you that in 2017 front runners with two dangerous candidates for the markets. jean-claude: i must confess it shows to an extent that our democracies are hurt. we are very fluid. polly was expecting this that we have now, very close to the election. are twoaid, there candidates that have extreme positions, extreme right and extreme left, and i would say from the economic standpoint, decisions that are in their programs are very, very bad, to whaty, in comparison is necessary in the country -- namely, structural reforms in the medium-term perspective. monitoring that would permit us to go back to full employment, which is the main goal that france has. clearly, that is not the case of two of the four candidates. [dele -- there seems to me a direction that could be ,nappropriate and circumstances i

vonnie: that was former ecb president jean claude trichet with francine lacqua earlier today in brussels up on the european close, we will follow stocks until the end of the penultimate trading session of the week. no trading on friday because of good friday, holiday here. stoxx 600 is up today come up to a 16-month high. small declines in london, small gains in germany. it is that sort of day. look at the currency board today. one of the more interesting run of losses has been the euro against the yen. the yen is up against the yen now. pound is up against the dollar. you're a down against the pound -- euro down against the pound. we have the court benchmark arising. core bond yids falng. periphery yields gaining. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> it is 11:00 a.m. in new york, 4:00 p.m. in london and 11:00 p.m. in hong kong. from london, i am mark artan. >> from new york, i am vonnie quinn. this is the european close. mark: we are going to take you from new york to london in the next hour. covering stories out of moscow and geneva. here are the top stories on the bloomberg and from around the wor

and former president jean-claude shri shay -- trichet. the president is calling together top ceos to discuss the future of policy and business. we speak to the danone the presidents left. a conversation with steve schwarzman. this is bloomberg. ♪ manus: it has just gone 6:18 a.m. in london. the hang seng is down and inflation numbers may be telling and unchanged story to the pboc, we will debate that shortly. equities are lower. there is a risk off sentiment in the market. a group of u.s. lawmakers want united airlines to explain exactly why it dragged a passenger off a plane and chicago. the u.s. department of transport says it has begun an initial review into the incident in which a passenger was forcibly removed. the carrier is struggling to contain the fallout from the incident after footage went viral. the ceo has offered a second apology describing what happened as truly horrific after shares slumped. daimler lifted. earnings climbed to 4 billion euros. profit at mercedes-benz jumped 60% driven by a surge in sales during the quarter

the former ecb president jean-claude trichet.he trump tax calling together ceos to discuss the future of policy and business. we will speak to the man on the president's left. a conversation with blackstone's ceo. that is next. this is bloomberg. equity markets pretty well bid in europe this morning. backs up by .7%. ♪ ♪ matt: welcome back to the european market open. 22 minutes into the trade and we are seeing gains across the board in equities here in europe. a little risk on scenario, a turnaround from what we saw in the u.s. and asia overnight. president trump held a meeting with cabinet members and ceos. david westin asked stephen schwarzman, when you expect a plan from the administration on tax reform? >> i'm not sure because his is very complicated. if the number was easy someone would print it and send it to you, but to accomplish some thing in that area, there has to be something taken away from other people to have the revenue to finance the tax cuts, and there are a lot of different ideas, a lot of different people bot

i asked jean-claude trichet if he saw a surprise on the cards.het: i do not think the extremes would be president, because it does not correspond at all to the position of the overall french people. -- aroblem that we have two round election, which is very special. but my own, i would say, understanding of the french people -- it calls for the appropriate lucidity of all the voters, which are the sovereign in any democracy. we have to be fully conscious that it is the sovereign which could decide. and the stakes are enormous. francine: that was former ecb president jean-claude trish a, speaking with me in brussels. bloomberg will bring you news makers in the weeks to come. we will be in washington on april 21, with central bankers from the imf 100 and 89 member states, in the annual spring meeting. live coverage of the french presidential election after all close on sunday, april 23. thanks for watching. ♪ yousef: i am yousef gamal el-din in istanbul. our top story is the outcome of by referendum in turkey, won a very narrow margin. turkey was ho

are signaling that we are not going to be at the target, the single needle in the compass the jean-claude trichetsed to talk about. it is headline inflation as well. we're not going to be there for a long time. how much longer should we think about policy being in stasis? mouhammed: you raised the point about the criteria. it talks about durable and sustain levels of inflation. we may hit the target, but the ecb could argue it is not sustainable. you showed the chart about the variability. it is not just about hitting the target. they need to see some persistence in it. he alluded to that several times in his speech. the other major takeaway is, he reinforced the point that the monetary stance has three things at its disposal. that is interest rates, asset purchases, and forward guidance. he's saying they are almost equally as important as each other. it is all part and parcel of their current policy stance. matt: we have seen big moves, at least one looks fairly significant as far as moves in the euro, moves in bund yields. to what do you attribute the market reaction, considering the fact that