French Bond Yields Test Hollande’s Economic Fealty

Investors are steering away from French bonds as they cast a wary eye on election frontrunner Francois Hollande’s calls to ease austerity.

French government debt ranked as the third-worst performer in Europe this month after Spanish and Italian securities as of yesterday, according to indexes compiled by Bloomberg and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies. The decline in French bonds occurred in anticipation of Hollande winning the first round of balloting against President Nicolas Sarkozy on April 22, which he did.