Rating agency Fitch maintains France's A+ rating, but lowers its outlook

The rating agency Fitch Ratings maintained France's sovereign debt rating at A+ on Friday October 30, but downgraded its outlook from stable to negative. “Weaker growth, further budgetary deterioration and higher yields [borrowing rates] have increased the difficulty of carrying out the sustained budgetary consolidation necessary to halt the trajectory of deterioration of France's debt,” estimates the agency. The previous rating from Fitch Ratings took place at the end of August.

The agency then maintained its rating and outlook, citing a “resilient” French economy. But since then, there has been a “deterioration in debt dynamics,” notes Fitch Ratings. In recent weeks, the cost of French borrowing has soared under the weight of concerns about the sustainability of the country's debt and the political and social divisions that divide it.

Friday evening, the Minister of the Economy, Roland Lescure, estimated that "this assessment confirms the absolute necessity of adopting a responsible budget by the end of the year, which aims to restore the public accounts by reducing our deficit to 5%". According to him, “the government is determined to continue on a trajectory of budgetary consolidation”. Earlier in the day Thursday, the minister admitted that "the French economy (was) at a standstill", following the publication of GDP figures for the third quarter, down 0.1%.

Machine-translated from French