President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday that he wanted Greek voters to "choose Europe" in upcoming polls and branded remarks by the IMF chief that Greeks dodged taxes as disrespectful.

"/> President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday that he wanted Greek voters to "choose Europe" in upcoming polls and branded remarks by the IMF chief that Greeks dodged taxes as disrespectful.

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ANGELA MERKEL

Hollande criticises IMF chief’s attacks on Greece

President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday that he wanted Greek voters to "choose Europe" in upcoming polls and branded remarks by the IMF chief that Greeks dodged taxes as disrespectful.

Hollande criticises IMF chief's attacks on Greece
LCP Assemblee Nationale

“The Greeks must face their responsibilities — be aware that what you decide on June 17 will have consequences, both for you and for us,” Hollande said during a televised interview.

Greece is holding a parliamentary election on June 17 for the second time in six weeks, with voters facing a choice of parties that oppose an international austerity plan for the debt-wracked nation, or those that support it.

The prospect of victory by anti-austerity parties has sparked fears that Greece would be forced to leave the euro, as European leaders have warned that Athens would not get any more rescue funds if it failed to implement promised reforms.

In an uncompromising interview published by The Guardian newspaper on Friday, the head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde said she had little sympathy for the Greeks, preferring to concern herself with the plight of starving children in Africa.

“I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time,” she said. “All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax.”

She said the Greeks could help themselves “by all paying their tax,” remarks that incensed many Greeks and led to 10,000 messages, many obscene, being posted on Lagarde’s Facebook page.

Hollande said he disapproved of the tone of her remarks.

“It’s true that there are very rich Greeks who evade taxes and that must not be accepted,” Hollande said. “But I don’t think that this is the best way to address the Greeks — ‘you know, you have to look at your situation compared to Africans whose lives are harder than yours’.”

“That is called respect,” Hollande said.

Hollande’s approach to the crisis has been that growth measures must accompany austerity and his election as head of the eurozone’s second largest economy was widely greeted in Greece.

The new French president’s stance on growth has put him at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who as head of Europe’s paymaster has championed austerity.

In his interview Hollande said he wanted “to find a good equilibrium between France and Germany that is at the same time respectful of our partners and European institutions.”

“We have already fixed a certain number of goals with Mrs. Merkel. She accepts the principle of growth, I accept the principle of serious fiscal discipline.

“She is against eurobonds,” which Hollande also supports. “She doesn’t say ‘never.’ She says ‘not now.’ That can open the way to a certain number of compromises.”

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POLITICS

Sleep, seaside, potato soup: What will Merkel do next?

 After 16 years in charge of Europe's biggest economy, the first thing Angela Merkel wants to do when she retires from politics is take "a little nap". But what about after that?

Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel briefly closes her eyes and smiles at a 2018 press conference in Berlin.
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel briefly closes her eyes at a 2018 press conference in Berlin. Aside from plans to take "a little nap" after retiring this week, she hasn't given much away about what she might do next. Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP

The veteran chancellor has been tight-lipped about what she will do after handing over the reins to her successor Olaf Scholz on December 8th.

During her four terms in office, 67-year-old Merkel was often described as the most powerful woman in the world — but she hinted recently that she will not miss being in charge.

“I will understand very quickly that all this is now someone else’s responsibility. And I think I’m going to like that situation a lot,” she said during a trip to Washington this summer.

Famous for her stamina and her ability to remain fresh after all-night meetings, Merkel once said she can store sleep like a camel stores water.

But when asked about her retirement in Washington, she replied: “Maybe I’ll try to read something, then my eyes will start to close because I’m tired, so I’ll take a little nap, and then we’ll see where I show up.”

READ ALSO: ‘Eternal’ chancellor: Germany’s Merkel to hand over power
READ ALSO: The Merkel-Raute: How a hand gesture became a brand

‘See what happens’
First elected as an MP in 1990, just after German reunification, Merkel recently suggested she had never had time to stop and reflect on what else she might like to do.

“I have never had a normal working day and… I have naturally stopped asking myself what interests me most outside politics,” she told an audience during a joint interview with Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

“As I have reached the age of 67, I don’t have an infinite amount of time left. This means that I want to think carefully about what I want to do in the next phase of my life,” she said.

“Do I want to write, do I want to speak, do I want to go hiking, do I want to stay at home, do I want to see the world? I’ve decided to just do nothing to begin with and see what happens.”

Merkel’s predecessors have not stayed quiet for long. Helmut Schmidt, who left the chancellery in 1982, became co-editor of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a popular commentator on political life.

Helmut Kohl set up his own consultancy firm and Gerhard Schroeder became a lobbyist, taking a controversial position as chairman of the board of the Russian oil giant Rosneft.

German writer David Safier has imagined a more eccentric future for Merkel, penning a crime novel called Miss Merkel: Mord in der Uckermark  that sees her tempted out of retirement to investigate a mysterious murder.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel forms her trademark hand gesture, the so-called “Merkel-Raute” (known in English as the Merkel rhombus, Merkel diamond or Triangle of Power). (Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)
 

Planting vegetables
Merkel may wish to spend more time with her husband Joachim Sauer in Hohenwalde, near Templin in the former East Germany where she grew up, and where she has a holiday home that she retreats to when she’s weary.

Among the leisure activities she may undertake there is vegetable, and especially, potato planting, something that she once told Bunte magazine in an interview in 2013 that she enjoyed doing.

She is also known to be a fan of the volcanic island of D’Ischia, especially the remote seaside village of Sant’Angelo.

Merkel was captured on a smartphone video this week browsing the footwear in a Berlin sportswear store, leading to speculation that she may be planning something active.

Or the former scientist could embark on a speaking tour of the countless universities from Seoul to Tel Aviv that have awarded her honorary doctorates.

Merkel is set to receive a monthly pension of around 15,000 euros ($16,900) in her retirement, according to a calculation by the German Taxpayers’ Association.

But she has never been one for lavish spending, living in a fourth-floor apartment in Berlin and often doing her own grocery shopping.

In 2014, she even took Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to her favourite supermarket in Berlin after a bilateral meeting.

So perhaps she will simply spend some quiet nights in sipping her beloved white wine and whipping up the dish she once declared as her favourite, a “really good potato soup”.

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