France downgrade widens EU's North-South schism
"The cleavage between North and South in the eurozone is becoming more and more clear," the minister said.
With eurozone weak-link Greece struggling to reach a debt writedown with bank creditors, eurosceptics say the only solution is to expel fiscally impaired nations from the 17-state monetary union.
"We cannot afford to keep buying time with taxpayers' money. Eurozone leaders must now face up to the reality that the eurozone disease will not begin to be cured until we remove the infected limb," said Martin Callanan, head of the European Parliament's European Conservatives and Reformists group.
Frits Bolkestein, a Dutch former EU commissioner, said recently that "a eurozone breakup is inevitable" because of the huge gulf between North and South.
http://www.france24.com/en/20120114-france-downgrade-widens-eus-north-south-schism
Attempting to combine trans-Alpine and cis-Alpine Europe was a big mistake.