European market and Euro currency suffered a blow due to political uncertainty in Europe particularly in France. Some disappointment with the Eurozone has made right wing political faction to gain popularity in France.
According to Reuters, French political condition has weighed on the country’s stock market. While French bond experience fluctuation as the presidential election approaching in April.
Current president François Hollande from Socialist Party is eligible to run for his second term, but last December, he declared that he would not run for another term. Therefore, the five remaining candidates are Benoît Hamon from Socialist, François Fillon from Republicans, Marine Le Pen from National Front, liberal Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
From the five candidates, two right-wing politicians National Front’s Le Pen followed by Republicans’ Fillon are leading the polls. The polling results are staggering because that signifies the dissatisfaction by French people with the Eurozone.
French people have been disappointed with the current condition of the EU. Moreover, they also face a rising threat from radical islamic terror attack which have targeted the country for the past two years. Such disappointment triggered the citizens to look toward the conservative political group for solution.
Le Pen who currently led the polling has vowed to leave the European Union when she won the presidential election. The fear of her to win the election added by recent polling result has triggered panic in the European market on Tuesday, Feb. 7, as reported by Bloomberg. Euro dropped 0.8 percent against dollar to $1.0665 and also weakened by 0.7 percent against Japanese Yen to 120.55.
Meanwhile U.S. market has gained from the political uncertainty that hit the European market. Dollar raised to the highest level in the week and strong corporate earning has boosted Wall Street indices. Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 37.87 points, S&P 500 raised by 0.52 point, while Nasdaq Composite Index gained 10.67 points.
Watch the report from Economist regarding the chance of Le Pen to become the next President of France below:
