If the banks proceed with purchases of their own government bonds, all public debt will be progressively renationalized, along with loans to the private sector, which undercapitalized banks have recently been providing only locally. The so-called “Sarkozy carry trade” is no solution to the systemic consequences of a sovereign-debt meltdown, but it would resolve a politically delicate situation, in which vulnerable eurozone governments hold foreign banks in just few countries to ransom.