The US agency is supposed to announce its classification on Friday evening. Standard & Poor’s is one of three international credit rating agencies, along with Moody’s and Fitch.
Currently, S&P gives France a grade of “AA” on a scale of twenty degrees, topped by “AAA”, which is the best possible rating, and the last of which is “D”, which is synonymous with debt default. It may downgrade it to “AA-” but it may keep it unchanged.
The agency can proceed from its projections of likely growth in the medium term. This is currently “negative”, which means a possible downgrade.
French officials have been closely watching the agency’s analysis, fearing for their image as good managers and reformers since Emmanuel Macron assumed the presidency. A downgrade could be a setback for them.
French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire confirmed on Wednesday that he had met with the US agency to present the French “arguments” that he considered “convincing”.
“We will be steadfast in reforming our public finances, reducing the deficit and accelerating the reduction of public debt,” Le Maire told France Inter on Wednesday. He considered the French economic results “solid”.
For her part, Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne confirmed Thursday during a visit to the city of Laval, “Whatever Standard & Poor’s decision, it does not change our determination to achieve our public financial goals.”
But according to the numbers, France’s performance results appear to be worse than other countries rated in the same category, as indicated by Fitch Agency, which downgraded France’s rating at the end of April from “AA” to “AA-“.
France has the highest indebtedness among countries in the same category, with a public debt of about three trillion euros.
Fitch indicated that the expected public deficit for this year and the next is much higher than that of the countries included in the same classification, justifying its analysis by the social crisis resulting from reforming the pension system and the difficulties faced by the executive authority to implement other reforms.
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