Michel Sapin

As Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos struggled on with tough bailout negotiations in Brussels on Tuesday, comments by his European counterparts about the possible need for the opposition in Greece to back economic measures after 2019, when the next Greek general elections are scheduled to take place, spurred political upheaval in Athens.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos met with French Finance Minister Michel Sapin in Paris on Sunday in the framework of the Greek minister’s European itinerary.

At a joint press conference, Mr. Tsakalotos said that trust had been built around the strategy Greece is following, leading him to believe that a “responsible agenda” would be put together.

A draft resolution to be submitted to the UN Security Council takes "explicit" aim at the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and its lucrative trade in oil, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told AFP in an interview Dec. 16.

France, announcing fresh moves against terrorist financing, said on Nov. 23 it would target prepaid debit cards which it said were used in the recent Paris attacks.
 
"We will regulate more strictly the use of prepaid cards which were used in the November 13 attacks, in order to make it harder to remain anonymous," Finance Minister Michel Sapin told a news conference.
 

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin was extremely critical of former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in an interview to radio station RTL. Sapin said Greece was fortunate that France supported her during the tough EU-19 Summit negotiations in Brussels.

The new Greek government has made progress defining its reform proposals but more needs to be done, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Thursday.

"There is progress with the last list ... Is there a need for more progress? Yes - in the quantification of the measures," he told reporters in Paris.

[Reuters]

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Tuesday there was a consensus with Greece on issues such as debt and ruling out a haircut and reaching an agreement was mainly about wording.

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Monday that Germany's firm position on talks about Greece's debt position was the right one but that the change of government in Greece also needed to be recognised.