The Generation Frexit leader lashed out against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposal for eurozone countries to increase their government spending by an extra 3 percent of GDP over the course of the next year to help stave off economic damage caused by the pandemic.
The IMF predicted the recovery of the EU will continue to lag behind that of the USA unless more money is paid by eurozone states into the recovery fund pot.
But Mr Gallois trashed the proposal. He said: “France should obviously revive more strongly … but at the national level!
“Do it with the EU Flag of European Union, that would amount for example to paying 200 billion euros, for a national recovery of 100.
“We couldn’t have a worse scam!”
The IMF’s latest economic outlook for the European region said: “Fiscal measures to stimulate investment and to facilitate job creation and reallocation would speed up the recovery.
“The faster the recovery, the less scarring people and businesses will suffer from unemployment, lost human capital and lower investment and research and development.”
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, a former head of the IMF, likened the eurozone’s recovery to a patient needing crutches to learn to walk again.
The comments, at a Reuters Newsmaker event, marked a rare intervention by Lagarde in the policy debate and signalled a pushback on suggestions, expressed by some eurozone central bank governors last week, that the ECB start dialling back its emergency bond purchases as soon as July.
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In March, the ECB upped the pace of its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme to stem a rise in bond yields and keep credit cheap for governments, companies and households impacted by the COVID-19.
The eurozone’s rate-setters are due to meet again next week and, while no policy change is expected, governors are likely to begin discussing the future of PEPP.
Dutch central bank governor Klaas Knot urged a reduction in the pace of bond purchases from the third quarter in a Reuters interview last week, a call later echoed by his Austrian counterpart Robert Holzmann.
But Ms Lagarde said the eurozone was still “swamped with uncertainty”, citing doubts among health authorities about COVID-19 vaccines produced by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
J&J delayed its COVID-19 shot and Denmark said it would drop AstraZeneca’s vaccine altogether over the risk of blood clotting.
Meanwhile, eurozone bond yields have risen again despite the ECB’s increased buying, tracking US Treasuries on hopes for a strong economic recovery and higher inflation on the other side of the Atlantic.
Mr De Guindos said the ECB was on the watch-out.
The ECB’s vice-president told members of the European Parliament on Wednesday: “If we notice…that there is a detrimental tightening of financing conditions, we will react.
“This is part of our commitment in the short term until the pandemic is over.”
