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End of the euro? French candidate plots return of the franc

AP PHOTO In this Feb. 5, file photo, Far-right leader presidential candidate Marine Le Pen gestures as she speaks during a conference in Lyon, France.

PARIS — If Marine Le Pen has her way, the French will soon pay for their baguettes with francs, not euros.

The presidential candidate from the anti-EU, anti-immigration National Front party is all about national sovereignty and independence. She wants France to take control of its money, subject to a referendum that would lead France out of the European Union and its shared currency.

But how would France pull off a euro exit, or “Frexit”?

No country has left the euro since its creation in 1999. A number of economists paint dire scenarios in which the departure of one of the euro’s 19 countries unleashes chaos: market plunges, controls on money transfers, customs officers stopping people carrying suitcases of cash out of the country, a plague of defaults and lawsuits on bonds and contracts.

The euro was designed to be irrevocable. It’s the “Hotel California” principle, as in the Eagles’ song: you may wish to “check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Le Pen is leading polls for the first round of voting April 23; most polls and prognosticators see her losing the second round on May 7. But after the British vote last year to leave the 28-member European Union, and after Donald Trump’s election as U.S. President, fewer people are taking a Le Pen defeat for granted.

Here are scenarios — starting with an explanation of Le Pen’s position by Jean Messiha, the economist who drafted her 144-point electoral program.

Messiha downplays apocalyptic scenarios, saying that since a disorderly breakup would harm other euro countries they have a motive to sit down and negotiate France’s smooth exit — a “soft Frexit” rather than a “hard Frexit” in which France simply pulls out with no agreement or cooperation.

Her election “will be a shock in Europe that will bring our partners around the table,” Messiha told The Associated Press.

The National Front, known in France by its acronym FN, foresees “a six-month negotiation period with our partners regarding what will be the new monetary framework, the new type of cooperation once we decide to go outside the euro,” he said.

“If the French people make the choice of Frexit, our partners could not continue to behave as if nothing has happened… The withdrawal of a country as large as France is not a minor event. It will have very important collateral impact on the eurozone. They will be forced to come to the table and negotiate a soft Frexit, not for our sake but for their own sake also.”

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