The BBC still dares not mention the B word which is a symptom of the kind of cowardice that led to the B word in the first place. The inability to call a spade a spade because the Tories might cut their funding (which they would do anyways).
I found it a bit puzzling that France was the other economy. Given that Germany is actually higher in terms of GDP its hard to tell what this really means. There's always been more pessimism for future returns of German companies and/or much more of the German economy isn't in public stocks? Or is it simply that Germany has more markets so the US in these comparisons would be separating NYSE and Nasdaq?