DBRS, this agency which also rates France's debt

It was in 2007 that the Canadian agency Dominion Bond Rating Service (DBRS) set up shop in France for the first time, after receiving approval from the Ministry of Finance to carry out its rating activities in France, at the following the favorable opinion issued by the Financial Markets Authority. Since then, she has regularly looked at the French case. And it is this Friday evening that it must update its financial rating. Overshadowed by the reputation of the three big agencies, Standard

After giving it an AAA rating for several years, with an outlook alternating between stable and negative, the DBRS agency downgraded the country in October 2020, without causing the markets to blink. She explained at that time that the pandemic was “exacerbating France’s existing credit challenges, including structurally high public sector spending and debt.” And above all emphasizes that the country entered the crisis "with a budgetary situation comparatively weaker than most of its AAA-rated peers" and that "France was not able to reverse the downward debt trajectory ". The debt then amounted to 1,800 billion euros, or 85% of GDP. Today it is more than 3,000 billion euros and 111% of GDP. It is nothing to say that the situation has continued to deteriorate since then. Even though several of our European neighbors having gone through the same crises as us, such as Greece or Portugal, have managed to reverse the trend.

Will the DBRS verdict set the tone for those of Fitch and Moody's, expected, with greater excitement, for April 26? In the meantime, the government has launched an uproar to show that it is now taking the subject head on. Three weeks ago, Bercy asked the ministries to increase spending by 10 billion euros this year, then 20 billion more next year. It must be said that, on Tuesday morning, INSEE will formalize a severe slippage in the public deficit in 2023. If it will happily exceed 5%, it was hoped for a time at 4.9% within the government, which does not does not yet have the official figure in its possession - knowing that that of 5.5% is far from being excluded.

Everything was discussed with the ministers concerned and members of the majority on Wednesday evening at the Élysée around Emmanuel Macron. Everyone knows that the upcoming sequence is not going to be easy. Bercy will have to adjust its stability program, which must be sent to Brussels before the end of April – taking into account the non-compliance with the commitments made last year, which further distance it from the target of 3% public deficit. Once the European Commission has looked at the situation of all the countries, it will then trigger its excessive deficit procedures, from which France will not be able to escape.