Italy paralysed as Grillo plots exit route from euro

[WestVirginiaRebel]

UK Telegraph:

Italy plunged deeper into political chaos this weekend after Beppe Grillo, the quixotic former comedian who holds the balance of power in parliament, suggested that the country may have to abandon the euro and return to the lire.

The rebel comic's warning came amid a growing rebellion among grass-roots supporters of his Five Star Movement, with 150,000 signing a petition calling for him to open up dialogue with the centre-Left Democratic Party, the biggest force in parliament.

With the country in political paralysis, there were also questions over his eccentric behaviour, after the surreal public appearance of a man, either Mr Grillo or one of his supporters, with his face obscured by a zipped up puffer jacket and a pair of ski goggles.

The bizarre figure, resembling a human fly, waved at photographers from the deck of Mr Grillo's beach house at Marina di Bibbona on the coast of Tuscany.

In an interview with a German magazine, Mr Grillo warned that "if conditions do not change" Italy "will want" to leave the euro and return to the lire. The 64-year-old comic-turned-political activist also said Italy needs to renegotiate its €2 trillion debt.

At 127 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), it is the highest in the euro zone after Greece. "Right now we are being crushed, not by the euro, but by our debt," he told Focus, a weekly news magazine. "When the interest payments reach €100 billion a year, we're dead. There's no alternative."

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In Italy, politics is literally a joke...