Debt : the note of France again on the hot seat tonight – Le Figaro

The rating agency Standard & Poor’s will again make its verdict on the French debt this evening. But the markets are insensitive to the decisions of the ratings agencies, since many months already.

This Friday night, the rating agency Standard & Poor’s will once again focus on the French case. Nobody takes the risk to do the prognosis. But this is no longer the anguish of a cutting torch, as was long the case! The last time that S&P downgraded France dates back to November 2013. The Hexagon was increased to AA -, two notches below the famous AAA, the rating assigned to the countries whose debt is the more reliable. Since this date, France is far behind the good students of europe (Germany, Luxembourg), still AAA. In January 2012, the u.s. agency had even been the first to deprive France of the best note, for reasons primarily related to the euro zone crisis, and its potential effects on the public finances. This decision had the effect of a bomb, the socialists who have transformed during the presidential campaign in the balance sheet of the management Sarkozy. “This is not France that has been degraded, had reacted to François Hollande. It is a policy, it is a strategy, it is a team, it is a government, this is a chair”.

The French State continues to finance itself on the markets at very attractive conditions

The note of france has since been downgraded several times by all three major rating agencies, S&P, Fitch, and Moody s. it is clear that such a financial sanction has not affected the economy: the French State continues to finance itself on the markets on very favourable terms, its borrowing rate remaining the same historically low (less than 0.2% at 10 years at this point).

In April 2016, S&P had left its rating unchanged in France, with a negative outlook. The agency warned then that, despite the decrease in the public deficit in 2015, the risks persisted for the stabilisation of the debt of France, in an environment of uncertain economic recovery, low inflation and possible budgetary slippages at the approach of the presidential election. The only thing that is sure, is that these risks have not decreased in a few months…

According to the latest figures from Insee, the French debt stood at 98.4 per cent of GDP at the end of the second quarter. 2 170,6 billion euros. A record!