Visualize the evolution of the French debt and deficit since 1980 | EUROtoday

The public deficit far exceeded authorities forecasts in 2023. It amounted to five.5% of gross home product (GDP), in line with the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee). A determine effectively above the 4.9% deliberate by the federal government within the newest finance legislation, adopted lower than three months in the past. Reacting to this announcement on Tuesday March 26 on France Inter, Pierre Moscovici, the primary president of the Court of Auditors, judged that the federal government had been “too optimistic”by underestimating the deficit of 17 billion euros.

The public deficit corresponds to the distinction between income (taxes, social contributions or for instance actual property gross sales) and expenditure (grants to administrations, social advantages) of the State. In the trendy historical past of France, the deficit has solely exceeded its 2023 degree 3 times:

• in 1993 with the disaster of the European financial system (6.4%);
• in 2009 and 2010, after the subprime disaster (7.4 and seven.1%);
• in 2020 and 2021 throughout the well being disaster (8.9 and 6.6%).

With a deficit of 5.5% of GDP, France is shifting a little bit additional away from the three% goal set by the European treaties. “A slip”in line with Pierre Moscovici, who himself needed to assume a major deficit when he was finance minister beneath François Hollande (2012-2014).

The deficit shouldn’t be confused with the debt. The State borrows every year to finance sure providers that it couldn’t finance with its revenues alone. While revenues, expressed as a share of GDP, stay comparatively steady over time, expenditures have systematically exceeded them. Result: deficits collected and debt exploded. It went from 20% of GDP in 1980 to greater than 110% right now, beneath the impact of a steady enhance boosted lately by Covid-19 and the beneficiant budgetary coverage of “whatever happens”. value “.

A large debt especially generates significant interest to repay: this is the debt burden, which is all the heavier the higher the interest rates. In 2022, the budget devoted by France to repaying its debt amounted to 53.2 billion, more than the budgets of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice combined, and 60% more than in 2020.