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Letter bomb explodes at Paris offices of IMF leaving one injured

A letter bomb exploded at the Paris offices of the International Monetary Fund on Thursday, injuring a secretary who suffered burns to her hands and face, police said.

Published: 16 March 2017 15:59 CET
Letter bomb explodes at Paris offices of IMF leaving one injured
Photo: AFP
Employees were evacuated from the building near the Arc de Triomphe monument in the heart of the capital “as a precaution” after the late morning explosion, a police source said.
 
IMF chief Christine Lagarde condemned it as a “cowardly act of violence”.
 
She reaffirmed “the IMF's resolve to continue our work in line with our mandate”, according to a statement issued by her office.
 
“We are working closely with the French authorities to investigate this incident and ensure the safety of our staff.”
 
 
French President Francois Hollande called it an “attack”, saying it showed that “we are still targeted.”
 
The victim, a secretary for an unnamed senior manager, suffered light burns from the blast which might have been caused by a firework, a police source told AFP, asking not to be named.
 
Armed police and soldiers were seen securing the area around the IMF offices.
 
France has been the victim of a series of deadly attacks by Islamic extremists since 2015.
 
Although no link has been established at this stage, a Greek far-left group claimed Thursday that it had sent a parcel bomb to the German finance ministry in Berlin, more than six years after waging a similar campaign targeting European officials.
 




Claim by 'Conspiracy of Fire'
 
The Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei group admitted responsibility in a statement posted on an anti-establishment website, but only mentioned Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble's office as a target.
 
German police said they had discovered the “explosive” package at Schaeuble's office on Wednesday, a day before he was due to host his new US counterpart Steven Mnuchin.
 
Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States, in 2010 sent letter bombs to foreign embassies in Greece and to three European leaders — then European Commission chairman Jose Manuel Barroso, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and then Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
 
A Greek police source said the claim was “most probably” authentic.
 
Germany and the IMF are blamed by many Greeks for imposing years of public sector cuts and reforms in exchange for bailout packages needed to prop up the recession-hit country.
 
Greece's interior ministry said authorities in both Greece and Germany were working together on the case.
 
A Greek police source said the package had a Greek stamp. The “sender” of the parcel was given as a deputy leader of the opposition New Democracy party — along with his real address.

ECONOMY

Italy’s economic policies will hit the poor hardest: IMF

Economic policies implemented by the populist government in Rome leave Italy's economy vulnerable to recession, with the poorest likely to suffer the most, the IMF warned.

Published: 7 February 2019 09:45 CET
Italy's economic policies will hit the poor hardest: IMF
Italy's economic policies could lead to recession, the IMF said. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

“The authorities' policies could leave Italy vulnerable to a renewed loss of market confidence,” an International Monetary Fund annual report on the country said yesterday.

“Italy could then be forced into a notable fiscal contraction, pushing a weakening economy into a recession. The burden would fall disproportionately on the vulnerable,” the IMF added.

The Italian economy, the eurozone's third largest, fell into a technical recession at the end of 2018.

The fund expects the Italian economy to grow by no more than 0.6 percent this year, well below the government's own estimate of 1.0 percent.

The European Commission is tipped to lower its Italian growth forecast on Thursday, and slower growth could spell trouble for Italy, where around 20 percent of national output is swallowed up each year by payments on the public debt, the second biggest in the eurozone.

Photo: Depositphotos

The IMF report praised the coalition government's “objective to improve economic and social outcomes (as) welcome.”

But it added that the only sustainable way of achieving such goals was through “faster potential growth” that would require structural reforms, “a credible fiscal consolidation” and stronger bank balance sheets.

The coalition government of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League party was forced to water down its ambitious and costly budget in December to avoid being punished by the EU Commission and financial markets.

The IMF report emphasised Wednesday that Italy “needs to tackle long-standing structural impediments to productivity growth. 

“This includes decentralising the wage bargaining regime, liberalising service markets, and improving the business climate.”

Deputy Prime Minister and M5S leader Luigi Di Maio quickly rejected the IMF report, charging that the Fund “has starved people for decades.”

The IMF, Di Maio claimed, “has no credibility to criticise a measure like the citizenship income programme,” the party's plan to introduce a welfare payment of 780 euros a month for Itay's least well-off.

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