25 June 2019
France’s public auditor on Tuesday warned that the country’s debt level, which is hovering at close to 100 percent, was “worrying” and urged the government to control spending.
France’s debt-to-GDP ratio is set to reach 98.9 percent this year, bucking the downward trend seen in most other eurozone countries after President Emmanuel Macron loosened the country’s purse strings to try end months of often violent “yellow vest” protests.
In a report, France’s Cour des Comptes said the growing divergence between France and its neighbours on debt reduction was “worrying” and “could lead to a deterioration of the perceived quality of France’s debt among investors”.
It chided the government over its failure to take advantage of a spell of growth to significantly rein in overspending, which leads to increased borrowing every year.
“France is far from having eliminated its structural deficit whereas many of its European neighbours have achieved a balance,” it warned in a 150-page report.
No French government has balanced the books since the 1970s.
On coming to power in 2017, Macron immediately set about trimming the deficit to bring it in line with an EU limit of three percent of GDP, which the eurozone’s second-biggest economy had persistently flouted for a decade.
Read more at https://www.thelocal.fr/20190625/
