•Alia Allana: Is a nuclear arms race foreseeable in the future?

I don’t think this question can be answered in the affirmative yet. But there is certainly a danger that a nuclear race may emanate, until and unless we are able to ascertain that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. The danger of proliferation is a fact. North Korea, for instance, is still wriggling out of the understandings achieved.

•Dheeraj Nayyar: There is considerable euphoria in France over the collapse of the ‘Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism’. Is there now a case for the ‘Continental model’ of capitalism?

I don’t think that anybody can be in a state of euphoria. This is the gravest threat to the world economy since 1929 and there is no reason for triumph. We need to have a rescue package by the US. Secondly, we will need to cope with the most serious threat inherent in the capitalist system — namely greed. Even the Wall Street does not believe in these self-healing capabilities of the market. Otherwise, they would not be continuously asking for rescue packages. The market is not providing the amount of security and the stability you need. It is not providing for even the public good. So, obviously there are certain things that cannot be done by the market. In France, they believe in the importance of the state as the guarantor of the public interest. In Germany, we have a market economy which is described as a socialist-oriented economy. We have been having a serious debate as to whether our economic system still provides the necessary amount of social justice. One of the reasons why we have been asking for more transparency in international markets even before this crisis is because we saw things suddenly happen that were threatening the stability of our political system. Suddenly, hedge funds were buying up German companies with big loans at the expense of the company purchased, cutting formerly healthy companies into pieces and throwing them into the market again — transactions through which some became rich and many lost their jobs. How do you explain that to your citizens?

... contd.