After China's grid grab still some juicy bits of Portugal left! French trade & elections.

Reuters has some encouraging news for those wishing to pick over the bones of the next EU victim - Portugal, read here.  Meantime a future prime pick for distressed selling of assets could be identifiied from the same source, as Reuters reported on the disastrous French trade gap for 2011, read here. The latter article has the following telling quotes:

...Farm produce and luxury goods such as handbags and perfume were the exceptions, France's customs office said on Tuesday, in a dismal year for exports that contrasted sharply with bumper returns in neighbouring Germany.
It said there was a deficit of 69.6 billion euros, at the lower end of government forecasts but still 35 percent higher than in 2010.
In Germany, the main engine of European growth and a global exporting superpower, data due on Wednesday is expected to show a trade surplus of around 156 billion in 2011.
The imbalance has become an issue in France's presidential campaign, with President Nicolas Sarkozy blaming a relatively higher cost of labour.

One cannot but help wondering how merging with Germany is going to help this situation, nor why President Sarkozy considers the German Chancellor as a campaigning asset, as she appeared on TV in that role yesterday evening, by his side.