The US financial rating agency S&P announced on Friday that it downgraded the rating of France from AA to A+, claiming there is a risk that the government will fail to significantly reduce its deficit next year.
“Despite the presentation this week of the draft budget for 2026 to Parliament, uncertainty about France’s public finances remains high,” he said in a statement.
The French president, Emmanuel Macronis trying to push through deep spending cuts through a divided Parliament, in which his party and its allies do not have a majority.
With the intention of avoiding censure from his government, the new prime minister, Sebastien Lecornubacktracked this week on a criticized pension reform that would have raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.
“Although, in our opinion, the objective of public deficit 2025 target of 5.4% of GDP, we believe that, absent significant additional budget deficit reduction measures, budget consolidation over our forecast horizon will be slower than previously anticipated,” S&P said.
In response to this second reduction of the S&P rating In a year and a half, Finance Minister Roland Lescure stated that the French government “reaffirms its determination to meet the deficit target of 5.4% of GDP by 2025.”
