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UK economy will overtake France’s, claims report

BRITAIN will overtake arch-rival France to become the world's fifth biggest economy in 2016, a think-tank will reveal this week.
And we may even leapfrog our cross-Channel cousins by the end of NEXT YEAR if the Euro crisis gets even worse.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) claims France has gone "ex-growth" and its output will shrink by 0.6 per cent in 2012.

Britain, meanwhile, will benefit from George Osborne's cuts β€” and staying outside of the Euro. France's downfall will be even more staggering if the single currency collapses.

CEBR chief Douglas McWilliams told The Sun: "Britain's GDP (economic output) will overtake France's GDP, it's just a question of when.

"If the Euro doesn't blow up this will happen in 2016, but in a worse-case 'Euro bust' scenario France will fall back dramatically. In this case, France gets overtaken not only by the UK, but also by Brazil by 2015, by Russia in 2016 and by India in 2017."

The CEBR's forecasts come just days after the French crowed that Britain's AAA debt rating should be slashed.

France's top banker Christian Noyer last week blasted that Britain has "a bigger deficit, as much debt, more inflation and weaker growth".

Instead, a credit rating agency warned French premier Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday night that Paris was far more likely to suffer a downgrade.

The CEBR said France was losing its competitiveness on the international stage. Its export market share has fallen a quarter since it signed up to the Euro.

Mr McWilliams added that the French faced years of austerity and its banks may need to raise billions of euros to withstand the chaos in Greece. He added: "The French are doing similar things to Osborne. But the difference is our government is doing it out of conviction rather than being forced to. It's surprising that they want to be so critical of the UK when the economic fundamentals look so bad for them."

The scale of the crisis in Europe was shown by a grim message from Spain's new PM Mariano Rajoy yesterday.

He vowed to slash Β£14billion from spending and revealed that youth unemployment was now a staggering 46 PER CENT. He said: "The panorama could not be more sombre."

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French cabinet ministers tell Britain: our economy is bigger than yours
PM and finance minister say it is not fair that France's AAA credit rating is under threat when Britain has a larger deficit

Kim Willsher in Paris
guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 December 2011 10.17 GMT

Finance minister François Baroin escalates a war of words between Paris and London Link to this video
French politics descended to the level of the school playground as two cabinet ministers and a senior bank official were reduced to shouting names at Britain from across the Channel.

Having sidelined Britain over a new treaty designed to save the crisis-hit eurozone a week ago, the French launched an ours-is-bigger-than-yours row over the state of each country's economy.

The extraordinary Entente Discordiale saw France's fresh-faced finance minister, François Baroin, 46, complain it was not fair that the US credit ratings agencies should be threatening France's triple-A listing.

"The economic situation in the United Kingdom is very worrying," Baroin said. "One would rather be French than British at the moment."

He added that Britain was in "a difficult economic situation … with a deficit level equivalent to that of Greece".

His words were echoed by the normally anglophile prime minister, François Fillon, who put the boot in during a visit to Brazil.

"Our British friends have a higher deficit and debt [than us] but it seems the ratings agencies have not yet noticed."

Christian Noyer, the head of the Bank of France, also joined the fray, coming right out with the suggestion that before reducing France's AAA rating, the agencies should hit Britain.

"The United Kingdom has more deficits, just as much debt, more inflation and less growth than we have," he said in an interview with Le Telegramme newspaper.

In turning on the neighbours, French newspapers suggested the government was trying to deflect attention from the anticipated loss of France's coveted AAA rating, which the opposition Socialist party warned would be "cataclysmic".

"Franco-British relations become even more strained," reported the right-of-centre Le Figaro.
FM
The British economy is in a very poor shape. It is not being helped by the large influx of illegal and legal immigrants, who claim all sorts of benefits without having earned it. So tax payers like myself are having to cough up more dough by the day. My income tax that I paid last year (2010) was twice the amount compared to the total salary I earned in 2006. When middle class earners like me are being squeezed, whilst the rich get accountants to hide their money, spending on non-essential items is very much restricted.
Mr.T
quote:
Originally posted by Mr.T:
Your facts are centuries out of date. When I cam to the UK in the 70's they manufactured cars, motorbikes, household appliances, electrical goods, etc. Now just about all of that is now being made in the Far East.
.

That's not what sustained the British economy.
They had major revenue producing investments like munitions and petroleum industries in former colonies.
TI
quote:
Originally posted by TI:
Yes,blame it on the immigrants, allu lazy limey bastards. Big Grin
Fact is, Britain's wealth was achieved by pillaging the colonies. Now, they can't fend for themselves.
I tend to agree with you on this.
However, British is still a colonialist power in Africa where the government secretly acquired land which exploits to produce food for Britain without paying taxes to the African countries and without employing Africans. Of course, a country that got used to getting everything for free from its colonies now feels the pressure of competition, since unlike Britain, China does pay in cash for the produce it gets from Africa and Africans now prefer to sell to China than to the British.
FM
quote:
Originally posted by TI:
quote:
Originally posted by Mr.T:
Your facts are centuries out of date. When I cam to the UK in the 70's they manufactured cars, motorbikes, household appliances, electrical goods, etc. Now just about all of that is now being made in the Far East.
.

That's not what sustained the British economy.
They had major revenue producing investments like munitions and petroleum industries in former colonies.

Looking at the GDP figures of that time, the revenues from petroleum was based in the North Sea and operated by British Petroleum. I reckon that you are getting confused between Shell, which is a Dutch firm, or with the US oil companies.
I can't comment on any munition factories outside of the UK since I have no information on such income to the British Exchequer. But less than 5% would have arrived from the colonies in the 70's. There were next to no colonies filling the British coffers in those days. Neither Australia, New Zealand, or Canada contribute any taxes to the UK. Most of the other former colonies had either got independence by then, or were commercially a non-entity on the world stage.
Mr.T
quote:
Originally posted by Lucas:
However, British is still a colonialist power in Africa where the government secretly acquired land which exploits to produce food for Britain without paying taxes to the African countries and without employing Africans.

Why are you penning down information that flies in the face of facts? The UK government has not acquired any such land, nor are they involved in growing food in Africa for export to the UK. What weed you smoking when you come up with such nonsense?
Mr.T
quote:
Originally posted by Mr.T:
quote:
Originally posted by Lucas:
However, British is still a colonialist power in Africa where the government secretly acquired land which exploits to produce food for Britain without paying taxes to the African countries and without employing Africans.

Why are you penning down information that flies in the face of facts? The UK government has not acquired any such land, nor are they involved in growing food in Africa for export to the UK. What weed you smoking when you come up with such nonsense?

They wanted to overthrow Mugabe for expropriating British farms, lucky Zimbabwe China came the the rescue.
FM

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