The Fitch and Moody’s agencies maintain France’s sovereign rating unchanged, established at levels “AA-” and “Aa2” respectively.

“This decision should invite us to redouble our determination to restore our public finances,” reacted soberly the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire on Friday.

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The Fitch and Moody’s agencies have announced that they are maintaining France’s sovereign rating unchanged, established respectively at the levels “AA-” And “Aa2”Friday April 26. The rating agency Moody’s maintained the sovereign rating of Franceat the level “Aa2” with a stable outlook, judging the risk of default to be very low despite the recent deterioration of the country’s public finances. The Fitch rating agency, which downgraded France’s sovereign rating last year, left it unchanged, at the level “AA-” with a stable outlook.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire immediately “took note” soberly of this news in a brief press release, adding that “this decision should invite us to redouble our determination to restore our public finances and meet the objective set by the President of the Republic: to be below 3% [de PIB] deficit in 2027″. “We will stick to our strategy based on growth and full employment, structural reforms and the reduction of public spending,” also argued the minister.

Fitch had indicated at the start of the month that it did not intend to lower this rating further, unless there was an increase “consequent” debt in the meantime. Moody’s rating, “Aa2”which remains a notch above that of Fitch, was accompanied by a stable outlook, and commentators believed that it risked being lowered to negative on Friday, which was not the case.

However, Moody’s judges “unlikely” that the government achieves its objective of reducing the deficit to 2.9% of GDP in 2027, the agency estimating that the debt could continue to increase to almost 115% of GDP in 2027, while the government thinks that it will not exceed 112% on this date. The outlook could improve provided the government succeeds “to have measures adopted and applied” allowing a significant reduction in debt, explains Moody’s.