MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

French minister warns of more social unrest in Europe

Christine Lagarde

With the rising threat of further job cuts and economic contraction Europe faces the risk of more social unrest unless measures are taken to quickly tackle the global economic crisis, France's finance minister says. Christine Lagarde said trust in the financial system needs to be restored.

Leaders need to send a clear, understandable signal to ordinary people about how governments were intending to act, she added. She said that action should be taken by the G20 summit taking place in London in April. "We're facing two major risks: one is social unrest and the second is protectionism" she told the World Economic Forum in Davos and repeated her statements on returning to Paris. "We need to restore confidence in the systems and confidence at large," she added. During the Davos conference hundreds of people demonstrated in Geneva to protest against the World Economic Forum. Carrying banners reading "you are the crisis" and throwing snowballs at security guards, the demonstrators said those at the forum were not qualified to fix the world's problems. Governments in France, Russia and Iceland have faced angry protests from citizens upset by their handling of the economic crisis. French rail and air services were disrupted last week as huge crowds took to the streets and Iceland's coalition government collapsed on Monday under the strain of the financial crisis.