France gets friendly

French Prime Minister François Fillon has questioned why credit ratings firms haven't taken a closer look at their scores for the U.K., which he said is in a worse position than some of its neighbours, reports the Wall Street Journal:

Our British friends [my italics] have a higher deficit and more debt, and I would say that the ratings agencies have not yet noted that.

And Christian Noyer, a member of the European Central Bank's governing council as well as head of the Bank of France, has questioned the usefulness of rating firms, which "have now frankly become incomprehensible and irrational".

In other words, we don't like what they're saying.

A downgrade doesn't seem justified to me when you look at the economic fundamentals.

Or else a downgrade should come first for the U.K., which has a greater deficit, as much debt, more inflation, and less growth than us, and collapsing credit.

How we love our British friends. Are these French comments a sign of the much vaunted "European solidarity"?