after France and a reunited Germany agreed by the Maastrict Treaty to create the euro. The French conservative daily Le Figaro had this to say on its front page: 'In the 1920s it was said that Germany would pay reparations. Now Germany is paying. The Maastrict Treat is a Versailles Treaty without war!'

Paul Krugman saw trouble in the decade of recession and unemployment necessitated by the convergence criteria of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, the precondition for adoption of the euro

In 1992, when the Treaty of Maastricht created the euro, it was stipulated that member states should ensure that their budget deficits would be less than 3 percent of GDP and that total public debt would remain below 60 percent of GDP.

the Maastricht Treaty, creating the European Union, was ratified in France in September 1992