Squawk Box (Europe)

Alan Capper, head of credit strategy at Lloyds Banking Group, told CNBC, "The two big things that I am looking for this week is the Spanish bond auction on Thursday and the first round of the French Elections over the weekend."

Lauren Rosborough, senior FX strategist at Societe Generale, told CNBC, "There is very little appetite for risk, if you look at how euro has been trading broadly since the start of the year; we are really struggling to push through that 130 level everyone is saying Euro/Dollar should be much lower."

Bruno Jeanbart, director of Political Studies at Opinionway, told CNBC, "The other candidates are very important because it is a two round election and what you need in the second round is to catch 50 percent of the voters. So both Sarkozy and Hollande will need to have some votes from Bayrou, Mélenchon and Le Pen."

Ben Verwaayen, CEO, Alcatel Lucent, told CNBC, "I think there are a number of issues that are truly important, first of all do the candidates really touch the issues themselves but also do they have a tone that reaches the people. A lot of people have turned their back to politics which is not a good thing but it is a reality."

John Haynes, head of research at Investec Wealth & Investment, told CNBC, "The building blocks are being put in place in Europe to push the problem away for a substantial period of time and I think when that becomes clear, which I think will be past the half year point, people will stop worrying about Europe as a drag and look at the opportunities in the world economy."

A new survey shows that nearly eight out of ten European based managers believe Europe will plunge back into recession this year, Mike Gordon, managing director of EMEA at FICO, told CNBC, "This is the fourth report we have done and it seems to be getting worse, most of the credit managers at the bank seem to see the market getting worse, even talking about more recessionary like activities."

Stephane Deo, head of European Economic research head at UBS, told CNBC, "The large companies in France are a positive, in the energy sector, luxury goods sector and the industrial sector and that is one of the reasons why exports have been dynamic in recent years."

Pierre -Yves Gauthier, founding partner, Alpha Value, told CNBC, "Certainly not, the two main candidates have avoided the key issue of macro-economic subjects. The only one that has invested a lot of his time is Mr Bayrou who seems to be slipping every day in the polls, so effectively it is not a political strategy to talk about macro-economics."

One third of French people are about to vote for an extreme candidate, either the extreme left with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, or the extreme right with Marine Le Pen. Stéphane Pedrazzi went to find out more about these candidates and those who are going to vote for them.