Debt: why France’s rating should be downgraded by Moody’s

It is a decision that Bercy must await with excitement. This Friday, October 23, Moody's must decide on France's sovereign rating. On October 24, 2025, the American rating agency gave a negative outlook to the Aa3 rating assigned to France since December 13, 2024. A new rating cycle did not call this decision into question on April 10.

Six months later, the director of economic studies at IESEG, Éric Dor, underlines this: “It would be impossible for Moody’s to simply lower the outlook associated [with the rating], since it is already negative. So the decision must be to downgrade the rating or maintain it. »

According to Rexecode economist Anthony Morlet-Lavidalie, there is “no doubt that Moody’s will lower its rating”. The expert sees this step as a “realignment” of the agency against its two major rivals: S&P Global Ratings and Fitch. The latter rate France's long-term debt A+, one rank below that of Moody's.

In an interview with La Tribune, the director of economic research for the Europe zone within the investment bank Morgan Stanley, Jean-François Ouvrard, said nothing else.

Questioned Tuesday by the Senate on a possible deterioration of the French note, the director general of Agence France Trésor (AFT), Antoine Deruennes, recalled a principle. According to him, the rating agencies do not “give privileged information” to the AFT ahead of their decision.

Machine-translated from French