France’s new PM Bayrou faces budgetary challenges as Moody’s downgrades credit rating

There is no additional time. It was 25 minutes after midnight on Saturday, December 14, and François Bayrou had not been the new prime minister for a few hours when an unexpected press release came: Moody’s had downgraded France’s credit rating. According to the American credit rating agency, France’s public finances are likely to be in dire straits over the next few years and the country no longer deserves the “Aa2” rating it had until now, equivalent to 17 out of 20. Standard & Poor’s rating was downgraded by one notch to “Aa3”. Fitch’s. A disgusting welcome gift.

Bayrou had no illusions about the state of public finances. During the transfer of power on Friday, former prime minister Michel Barnier warned that the budget deficit “has not magically disappeared” following the confidence vote. “No one is more aware of the difficulty of the situation than I am,” Bayrou replied. He went on to recall that in 2007 he made the need to reduce France’s debt the main thrust of his ill-fated campaign for the Elysée: “Everyone said: ‘He’s totally crazy, you can’t run a campaign about debt’.”

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