Greek finance minister in Paris Sunday as Syriza government seeks anti-austerity allies

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is to meet his French counterpart Michel Sapin in Paris on Sunday, a day earlier than planned, as Greece’s new left-wing leaders try to drum up support for their rejection of austerity policies.

Le nouveau ministre des Finances grec Yanis Varoufakis, le 28 janvier 2015 à Athènes. ReutersS/Marko Djurica

Varoufakis’s office on Saturday announced that he would be arriving in Paris the same day for meetings with French ministers on Sunday.

Sapin’s office later confirmed that the ministers would meet at 5.00pm local time and make a statement one and a half hours later.

An informal meeting with French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron would also take place, officials said.

Varoufakis, who on Friday declared that Greece would not negotiate with the “troika” of the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, is also to visit Italy, seen as a possible ally in its efforts to be let off repayment of part of its seven-billion-euro remaining debt.

Newly elected Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is to meet Italy’s Matteo Renzi on Tuesday and French President François Hollande on Wednesday.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of Spaniards turned out for a “march for change” in Madrid called by Podemos, a recently formed left-wing party similar to Tsipras’s Syriza.

Tsipras, who on Friday quipped that he would “be original and keep my promises”, has promised to reemploy thousands of sacked public-sector workers, raise the minimum wage and stop a troika-enforced privatisation programme.

But the Portuguese government, which has been putting through austerity policies, has refused to back the new Greek government, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho opposing any “conference that may be proposed so as to cancel or restructure the debt in calling for solidarity of the European people”.

The leaders of Europe’s strongest economy, Germany, are vehemently opposed to debt restructuring.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday ruled out any such move and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble declared that Berlin is “averse to blackmail”.