€uro branded a failure by voters 23 years on

France joined the eurozone on January 1, 1999. Almost 23 years later, French people still do not believe the EU's common currency has been beneficial to their pockets.

According to a poll launched by French daily Le Figaro on Tuesday, as of 09:20 am today, 61.08 percent of the 95,343 respondents said the euro has not been beneficial to the them.

The eurozone, already struggling to fully recover from the 2009 financial crisis, has been further hit by the coronavirus pandemic, sparking fears of a new collapse.

Paolo Gentiloni called in November for a debate on reforming EU debt rules in view of the economic strains caused by the coronavirus crisis.

The European Union's Economy Commissioner wants to set debt limits on an individual basis for member states under a proposed reform of the EU Stability Pact that he aims to present around mid-2022, he told daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

He said: "We cannot lump all countries together. The differences in the (current) debt ratios are too high for that."

State support and investment programmes to counter the economic impact of COVID-19 have sent many EU states' debt levels soaring beyond the Stability Pact's current 60 percent of gross domestic product limit.

Gentiloni said his reform would set individual debt goals for each country, adding that the Commission should be given more effective instruments to enforce budget rules.

He rejected a proposal by Klaus Regling, the head of the eurozone bailout fund, to raise the debt limit to 100 percent of GDP for all states.

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