Continued growth has made it possible to reduce the weight of France’s public debt and deficit in 2022 in relation to GDP, but public debt has increased in absolute value, approaching 3,000 billion euros. euros, indicates INSEE this Tuesday, March 28. The 2.6% economic growth recorded last year in France made it possible to reduce public debt to 111.6% of gross domestic product (GDP), against 112.9% in 2021, in line with government expectations.
France’s public debt, which has increased massively with the health crisis and then inflation exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, has however increased in absolute value by 126.4 billion euros compared to 2021, reaching 2 950 billion euros, detailed the National Institute of Statistics (Insee).
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However, the public deficit is doing better than expected, at 4.7% of GDP in 2022 against 6.5% the previous year, falling below the 5% target that was displayed by the executive. In value, it stood at 124.9 billion euros, benefiting from revenue remaining “dynamic” with an increase of 7.3% to 95.7 billion euros, according to INSEE. These reached 53.4% of GDP (compared to 52.6% in 2021) while expenditure fell to 58.1% of GDP (compared to 59.1%).
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The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, welcomed the ” resilience “ of the economy that led to this improvement, while reaffirming its “determination (…) total” restore public finances. Because if the public accounts look a little better in 2022, the public debt and deficit remain much higher than their pre-crisis level in 2019, due to the massive “whatever it takes” rolled out by the government to support households and businesses. Public debt then represented 97.4% of GDP when the public deficit stood at 3.1%.
To restore public finances, the government is counting mainly on a faster rise in GDP than spending, which would be subject to “several billion euros in savings” in the draft finances (PLF) 2024.
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It plans to present its multi-year trajectory for public finances around mid-April. At this stage, it is counting on a public deficit of 5% in 2023 which would gradually be brought below the European limit of 3% in 2027, while the debt would stabilize at 110.9% by this horizon.
