AFT helps France plot safe course through euro crisis

The French government bond market is a mainstay of European capital markets and lies at the heart of the eurozone. Two years ago, it suffered a wobble after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the country’s sovereign debt, but it is once again back among the safest of safe havens. EuroWeek met the then head of the Agence France Trésor and four of its primary dealers in Paris early in 2013 to discuss how France batted away the doubters to maintain one of the biggest, most liquid and perhaps most innovative of government debt markets, and to consider what the future holds for investors in French sovereign debt.