On Friday, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire reacted soberly, stressing that this decision should encourage us to intensify our efforts to restore the health of our public finances

On Friday 26 April, Fitch and Moody’s confirmed that they were maintaining France’s sovereign ratings at ‘AA-’ and ‘Aa2’ respectively. Despite the recent deterioration in the country’s public finances, Moody’s judged the risk of default to be very low, maintaining France’s sovereign rating at ‘Aa2’ with a stable outlook. For its part, Fitch, which had downgraded France’s sovereign rating the previous year, maintained it at ‘AA-’ with a stable outlook.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire reacted soberly to the news, noting that it should encourage intensified efforts to restore public finances and achieve the objective set by the President of the Republic of keeping the deficit below 3% of GDP by 2027. He also affirmed that the government’s strategy was based on growth, full employment, structural reforms and the reduction of public spending.

Moody’s has deemed it ‘unlikely’ that the government will manage to reduce the deficit to 2.9% of GDP in 2027, estimating that the debt could rise to almost 115% of GDP by that date, while the government is counting on a ceiling of 112%. However, the outlook could improve if the government manages to implement significant measures to reduce the debt, according to Moody’s.