Blanchard, Lagarde of IMF Are Nervous

Olivier Blanchard, chief economist of the IMF, is nervous:

The fund this week upgraded its estimate of global growth in 2012 and 2013 from estimates made in January, but did so with major caveats. “An uneasy calm remains,” said Olivier Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist. “One has the feeling that any moment, things could well get very bad again.”

Christine Lagarde, director of the IMF, darkens the metaphor from "uneasy calm" to "dark clouds on the horizon":

There is a “light recovery blowing in a spring wind” with “dark clouds on the horizon,” Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said Thursday, at the start of meetings here that will focus on Europe’s troubles and global growth. Ms. Lagarde implored world leaders not to become complacent.

Will such warnings, coupled with a Socialist victory in the French elections, be enough to shift the balance of thinking in Europe, and especially Germany, away from austerity and toward emergency measures to fight a relapse into deep recession? It's not at all clear, but "Point n'est besoin d'espérer pour entreprendre, ni de réussir pour persévérer" (William of Orange).