Different situation. France has only itself to blame for the current situation and has plenty of things it can still do to avoid a crisis. Plus the debt holders are very diversified.
The Greek crisis is very different because the debt was mostly held by German banks - the German did to do something of all these excess savings and the Greek economy suffered a lot from the euro. Reforms were needed but the way the whole thing was handled is a disgrace.
I frequently see this sentiment but it's not really very informed or informative. Greek creditors took huge haircuts on the debt - that never gets mentioned.
Then, Greece had a choice, just like every other country always has a choice when faced with a debt crisis: Accept the terms of people who will bail you out, or default. It is always like this, because no-one is going to bail you out if it is apparent that the situation will just repeat. The Greek people voted to reject the terms of the bailouts, which meant leaving the Euro, printing their own currency, and accepting that the global capital markets would not be buying their bonds for the foreseeable future. The Greek government saw the choice and ignored the people, because they knew the alternative to the bailout was far, far worse. The only reason they ran that referendum was to try use it to bargain for better terms, they never had any intention of defaulting.
That's not me being misinformed. That's you intentionaly misrepresenting the situation.
The question is not if the Greek could refuse. The question is was the terms put forward by "the Greek creditors", that is to say Germany, were fair and in the interest of the union as a whole. If I put a gun to your head, no one will listen if I tell them I gave you a choice you could have refused. You just had to take the bullet.
Germany basically refused to Greece what they themselves got in 1953 despite the situation being in part caused by their own complete mismanagement of the economy, a situation they have yet to fix by the way.
I don't know what is more repugnant: what they did or that there is people defending it and having so little shame they pretend others are misinformed.
