ABSTRACT
The international financial crisis that broke out in 2007 reveals the limits of a model of growth based on over-indebtedness in the private sector as a way of offsetting wage restraint. It also reveals the limits of an accrual system based on the all-embracing power of finance and the belief that markets could regulate themselves. 1 The fragile recovery that began in the third quarter of 2009 was cut short in Europe in 2010, and the sovereign debt crisis worsened.
In the countries hit hardest by the crisis, the socialisation of losses in the financial system and the budgetary activism of governments have also resulted in a destabilisation of public finances, which in Europe has degenerated into a sovereign debt crisis, calling into question the very future of the single currency. 2
