The numbers are relentless for France. Public debt is increased by 5,000 euros per second and has reached € 3,416 billion or 115.6% of 113.2% in late 2024. After increasing € 40.2 billion in the first quarter this year, the semester was enlarged to 70.9 billion euros. This is not something unexpected.
The debt ejecting was expected by the same, which has already informed Brussels since the spring that at the end of the year the debt rate on GDP will reach 116.2%, that 2026 would continue to increase to 117.6% and in 2027 to culminate to 118.1% before it begins.
All of this, of course, provided that fiscal consolidation measures that are left to be decided by a government that is still being sought is adopted. The outlook for debt decline also presupposes that the budget deficit will be held in budget 5.4% of GDP this year. And that it will fall to 4.6% in 2026 and will continue to decline until it reaches a 3% threshold in 2029, based on the plans of the government’s government, François Bairou. It is recalled that deficits are converted into debt.
Distrust
The problem is that after the political crisis that broke out from the unexpected dissolution of the National Assembly by Macron after the 2024 European elections, many question the plans of the Paris governments. Goldman Sachs recently predicted that French debt would continue to grow after 2029 and that it would not start stabilizing before 122% of GDP.
Fitch has downgraded French debt to A+ because it believes that the deficits will continue to accumulate and the debt ratio to GDP will continue to worsen at 121% in 2027 “without indicating evidence that it will be stabilized in the years.” Debt swelling is accompanied by a consequent increase in its service costs – it will exceed 100 billion euros in 2029, according to estimates by the French Court of Auditors.
Marginal status in France
Slowly, one would think. France has been living and prosperous (as a G7 country) with high deficits and over -debt for half a century. Political and economic institutions and analysts systematically, domestic and international, warn of them. And yet, now the situation looks marginal.
Beyond the internal crisis, it is also the international context for France and for the whole of Europe, which is in danger of being crushed in the complexes of the geopolitical conflict and the US and China economic competition. It is the commercial and economic fragmentation imposed on the planet by Trump policy and the closure of international trade routes by the prisoner of neo-Merkadilism.
It is also the international military competition that deflects investment funds for non -productive purposes. France has managed to turn into a weak link of a powerless Europe, without ballast and orientation. The numbers are relentless for the country, but its leaders are also fatal.
