Europe has returned to the signature brinkmanship of the debt crisis that brought its currency union close to collapse five years ago: France and Germany are again warning Greece it is putting its eurozone membership at risk, The Wall Street Journal reported. With a Greek election looming this month, and a party hostile to European-imposed austerity apparently poised to win, French President François Hollande on Monday raised the possibility of Greece exiting the 19-member bloc—departing from the traditional stance that euro membership is irrevocable.

Moving to battle high unemployment and a stagnant economy, the Socialist government of President François Hollande on Wednesday announced a long-promised program meant to stoke growth and create jobs, the International New York Times reported. The measures, including allowing more retail stores to open on Sundays, fall far short of what some experts say is needed to revive the stagnant French economy. Nonetheless, important members of Mr.

“Job-preservation agreements” that were designed to emulate Germany’s Kurzarbeit program—allowing companies to negotiate lower pay and working hours to stay afloat in difficult times—have run into a wall of bureaucracy that is distinctly French, The Wall Street Journal reported. While there have been fewer clashes with unions over layoffs thanks to streamlined procedures, employers say they still don’t have the flexibility they need to actually keep people in work. On the contrary, things are even more complex.

Thousands of French company chiefs took the streets on Monday in a rare protest against what they see as excessive taxes and red tape strangling activity in the euro zone’s second largest economy, the Irish Times reported. The protests in Paris and the southwestern city of Toulouse are the first in a week of demonstrations organised by employer groups before the December 10th unveiling of a law President Francois Hollande’s government hopes will boost investment and jobs.

Vivarte SAS’s loans tumbled to their lowest levels since the French retailer was taken over by creditors last month, according to three people familiar with the matter. The company’s 800 million euros ($997 million) of senior loans fell to 63 cents on the euro, down about 20 cents since the start of November, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The loans are part of Vivarte’s remaining debt after lenders wrote off about 2 billion euros in a restructuring that completed on Oct. 29.

French public passenger transport group Transdev, owned by Veolia and state bank CDC, is to call in loans to its France-Corsica ferry operator unit SNCM next week, it said on Friday, pushing the unit into filing for court protection from insolvency, Reuters reported. Transdev's owners have said court protection from creditors is the only way to shield the loss-making ferry operator from two separate European Union state aid repayment claims totalling 440 million euros.

Italy and France backed away from a clash with the European Commission over their 2015 budgets on Monday by pledging extra measures to cut their deficits, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move comes after the commission, the European Union’s executive arm, warned Rome and Paris last week that their budget plans would violate its fiscal rules.

Germany and France have tapped a prominent economist from each country for policy advice to counter “the risk of a lost decade in Europe” in an attempt to bridge the growing divide between the two countries over how to revive flagging economic growth in Europe. German Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel and French Economy and Industry Minister Emmanuel Macron recently solicited help from French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry and Henrik Enderlein, lecturers at the Berlin-based Hertie School of Governance, in separate letters seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Ever since the French government unveiled its 2015 budget two weeks ago, fiscal enforcers in Brussels have attempted to convince Paris it must do more – making additional spending cuts and implementing more reforms – for them to accept the plan, the Financial Times reported. In recent days, as the prospect of an EU rejection became imminent, the discussions moved beyond the normal economic channels, pulling in members of the still-to-be-approved European Commission, including Jean-Claude Juncker, its incoming president, and Frenchman Pierre Moscovici, his economic nominee.

Euro Disney has agreed a €1 billion funding deal backed by its largest shareholder, the Walt Disney, which includes a share sale and a debt restructuring, to allow it to invest in the business, the Irish Times reported. Euro Disney, the entertainment resort based in an eastern suburb of Paris, is 40 per cent owned by parent Walt Disney (DIS.N) and 10 per cent by the Saudi prince AlWaleed bin Talal. As part of the offer Walt Disney would be required to launch a tender offer on Euro Disney shares.