This is the headline of Libération‘s interview today with Socialist Claude Bartolone, president of the Seine-Saint-Denis department in greater Paris. Today, Bartolone and three other local elected officials, one of whom is from the ruling UMP party, will be creating “Public Figures Against Toxic Loans.” Bartolone is ferocious in this interview. Here are excerpts:

Q: Why did you decide to attack the banks?

A: When I was first elected three years ago to head this département, I ordered a financial audit. There, I discovered, shocked, that my predecessors had made Seine-Saint-Denis a champion in the world of toxic loans, with 97% of the debt based on wild indexes: exchange rates of the euro to the dollar or the euro to the yen. At first, I was patient and pedagogical. But after the immobility of the government, after the provocation by Dexia [bank]— which proposed that I pay a EU33 million penalty for renegotiating a EU55 billion loan — and after the interest on a loan by Depfa went from 1.47% to 24.5%, I said: “Stop. We’re going to court.”

Q: What are you asking for?

A: The cancellation pure and simple of those loans; set the counters back to zero: I’ll repay the principal. But they give me back the interest already paid.

Q: Why create an association to do that?

A: To put some muscle behind our resistance against gangster bankers…. With this instrument we will allow all public figures to participate in what I expect will be tomorrow a French-style class-action. Those toxic loans are also a tendency of finance capital, with the same nature as the subprimes [mortgages].

Q: Who is joining you in this initiative?

A: Ten right-wing and left-wing local administrations…. Our relation to the banks is one of the “weak to the strong.” When the Crédit Local of France, a major public partner of the French local administrations, became Dexia and was transformed into a mere instrument of speculation, this bank kept the same representatives they deployed earlier to deal with the local administrations, who didn’t realize that instead of advising them, their aim had become to have them take risky products whose margins of fluctuation were more than those at fixed interest.

5 Responses to “possible large class action law suit in France against toxic loans and subprime mortgages: “reset to zero””

1. Thayne Doak
   March 11th, 2011 @ 4:50 am

   Orly,
   Are you running a news site, like Drudge, or is this an eligibility website?
   Thayne

2. The European
   March 11th, 2011 @ 7:57 am

   French law knows no “Class Action”.

3. Starla
   March 11th, 2011 @ 12:11 pm

   CONSTITUTIONAL EMERGENCY

   A message to all members of Constitutional Emergency

   March 11, 2011

   US House of Representatives,

   Speaker Boehner and All U.S. Representatives,

   Vote “NO” on the next continuing resolution (CR) unless it contains a provision to defund Obamacare of the billions that were secretly and fraudulently appropriated by the old Democratic Congress.. If this is not done now, this funding will be self-perpetuating into the future.

   Speaker Boehner, honor the will of the voters (who gave you a Republican majority and the Speaker’s Office) by including a provision to rescind the $105 billion with which Obamacare has already saddled the American Taxpayer.

   Respectfully,

   Harry Riley, COL, USA, Ret

   Crestview, FL 32539

   Visit Constitutional Emergency at:

   https://patriotsforamerica.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

4. Daniel Boone
   March 12th, 2011 @ 4:55 pm

   Thayne:…it is both! One has to be informed before one can learn about eligibility! And what difference does it make?

   It’s Orlys’ Site, so just go with it!

   Dan…

5. Parenthesis
   March 12th, 2011 @ 7:07 pm

   Lady Liberty – Why don’t you be the lawyer for the suit? You are, after all, a member of the International Bar aren’t you?

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