France’s sovereign debt begins to grow again

This is evidenced by open statistical data, which also shows that this government debt was declining over the previous three years.

Over the past three years, the aforementioned indicator has consistently shown negative dynamics, and at the end of 2023, it was 1.2 percentage points lower than the previous year.

The maximum for this indicator in the modern history of France was in 2020, during which time the Covid epidemic contributed to the issue, causing the ratio of public debt to GDP to accelerate by 17.3 percentage points over the course of the year, to 114.7%.

This placed current President Emmanuel Macron in third place among the country’s leaders in terms of the growth rate of this indicator – as it rose during his rule by 14.9 percentage points. The lowest dynamics were recorded under President François Hollande – during his rule the ratio of public debt to GDP increased by only about 7.4 percentage points. Jacques Chirac came in second place with a growth rate of 8.5 percentage points.

During the rule of Nicolas Sarkozy, the ratio of public debt to GDP increased by 23.3 percentage points, and during the rule of François Mitterrand, the increase was 27.9 percentage points.

Overall, from the beginning of Mitterrand’s presidency in 1981 to the present, the ratio of public debt to GDP has increased more than five-fold.

Source: Novosti