To them, Tsipras is dangerous because he has pledged to tear up his country's controversial bailout pact with Brussels, despite saying he wants the country to stay within the euro.

CNN: What if Greece can't manage payback?

French economic policy is hemmed in by a fiscal pact where deficit targets are set in Brussels.

BBC: Italian election lessons for wider Europe

Faced with an opportunity last December to wring concessions out of Brussels in return for supporting the euro-zone Fiscal Pact, he opted to make highly technical, apparently innocuous but actually implausible demands relating to the City of London, including a veto over single market financial rules.

WSJ: Cameron Main Threat to Britain In Europe

Following the weekend political developments in France and the Netherlands, the German-inspired fiscal pact, agreed by euro-zone leaders in Brussels in December, could also be delayed or thrown into question.

WSJ: Sarkozy Fights for Survival

In Brussels the Irish government had tried to water down the new pact in the hope it would escape needing a national vote, but Ireland's top legal official judged that "on balance" it was significant enough to be put to the people.

BBC: Ireland gets to vote on EU fiscal treaty

Government debt and expenditure remain stubbornly high, and Italy has been repeatedly rapped on the knuckles by Brussels for failing to keep within the parameters of the Euro stability pact.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Berlusconi: Out but not down

Seen from Brussels, Italy is increasingly the big test of the new (and weaker) stability pact, which is supposed to set fiscal rules for euro members.

ECONOMIST: Italy: Stormier weather ahead | The