France’s public debt exceeded the symbolic threshold of 3 trillion euros for the first time in the first quarter, rising to 112.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), against 111.8% at the end of December 2022, indicated this Friday morning the INSEE.
The country’s public debt, which has increased massively since the health crisis, further increased by 63.4 billion euros to reach 3013.4 billion in absolute value at the end of March, detailed the National Institute of the statistics.
These figures, as impressive as they are, do not mean much from a financial point of view. The public accounts of a State are, in fact, always considered by investors relative to those of their peers. And unfortunately, the comparison is not flattering for Paris. Ten years ago, at the end of the sovereign debt crisis, with a debt to GDP of 90.6%, France was seen as a perfect student in the middle class, posting a score stuck to the average of the euro zone. (90.7%). The story is quite different at the end of 2022: the French debt to GDP amounts to 111.6%, ten points more than the average of the States of the euro zone (91.6%).
How to explain such a shift in a decade? Quite simply because France made no substantial effort during the period to try to rationalize its public spending while its neighbors were taking the issue much more seriously. “If France is the country that makes the least effort on its debt, it will eventually show!” was alarmed, a year ago in our columns, the president of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici. The presentation in the spring by all the States of their public trajectories for the next few years was the occasion for this awareness. Paris posting, despite the pension reform and the savings promised, much less ambitious objectives. In 2026, according to its projections, France would thus be the only major European state not to post a GDP deficit of less than 3%.
