The euro prints $1.1161, a 17-month low, as French bonds stay under strain

The euro fell to 1.1161 dollars in Asian trading on Monday, its weakest since May 2025, and a 17-month low. It was last down 0.68 percent at 1.1176. It also lost 0.5 percent against the Swiss franc and 0.39 percent against sterling. The slide is the fourth straight weekly decline, and it arrived with French bond futures down 0.22 percent, close to the lows they have been hugging, while German Bund futures rose 0.1 percent.

That split is the useful fact. Investors sold the French contract and bought the German one on the same morning. The euro, which has to price both, went down. Reuters tied the move to France's debt, to doubts about political gridlock before next year's election, and to a bond rout that has already pushed global borrowing costs to multi-decade highs. Oil is part of the inflation worry behind that rout. A French budget promise made now is being discounted because a change of government is close enough that the promise may not bind the next one.

The level matters for anyone with a euro invoice. At 1.1161 the single currency is back where it was in May 2025. Four weekly losses mean the move is not a one-hour Asian print that reversed by London. The last price Reuters carried, 1.1176, is only a few ticks off the low. Against the franc the loss is a second signal: Swiss money is being treated as the regional shelter, which is what happens when the question is European fiscal risk rather than a generic dollar bid.

The dollar side of the tape did not cooperate with a simple rate story. Soft US jobs data had dented near-term bets on a Federal Reserve hike. A weaker jobs print would normally lean against the dollar. On Monday the dollar held up anyway, because the euro was the currency being sold. Safe-haven demand and higher yields did the work, on the Reuters account. The euro's problem was French, not American.

Contagion is the word desks reached for, and it should be kept tight. French bond futures near record lows, and Bunds slightly better, are a divergence inside the euro area. They are not yet a 2011-style run on several sovereigns. The fear in the notes is that the European Central Bank could be asked to support French debt if the sell-off spreads. The ECB has not announced a programme. A 0.22 percent dip in the French future is a bad session, not a closed market.

What would change the print is a French fiscal number markets believe, or an ECB sentence. Neither arrived on Monday. The election calendar is the reason a budget speech is being marked down: the government that delivers it may not be the government that has to fund it. Until that political fact moves, 1.1161 is the low the euro has already traded, and 1.1176 is where it was left when the Asian session's worst print had been slightly retraced.