Historical precedents were readily to hand. Europe had a track record of curbing radical left-wing governments. After a few “wild months” in the autumn of 1998, Germany’s Red-Green government under Gerhard Schroeder had jettisoned Oskar Lafontaine as finance minister.52 In 1983 Mitterrand’s turn to a hard currency policy had presaged the ouster of the Communists from his coalition government. Looking further back, the Financial Times helpfully suggested as a precedent “Britain’s 1931 National Government.”
