The French national debt has climbed to record levels

Macron has not yet announced whether it intends to defend its mandate in the presidential election next year. His current situation is difficult, except that in a survey that Marine Le Pen is catching up with him, while tensions in society are rising sharply, the French national debt has climbed to record levels. According to Benedict Peyrol, a member of Macron's party, this is the problem that worries voters the most. At least in the Center-Val de Loire region in the middle of France. "I was honestly surprised. It is a rural area where the national debt is not an everyday topic. And yet people are very worried about how we will pay for it, "Peyrol told Bloomberg. According to Eurostat, France's national debt rose to an unprecedented 115.7 percent of GDP last year, making it one of the worst in the EU. In its autumn forecast, the European Commission estimates that the debt-to-GDP ratio will continue to grow this year, exceeding 119 percent next year. Recent surveys in France have confirmed that concerns about the country's economic situation are of particular concern to older voters, who have traditionally had the highest turnout. The country has long failed to comply with EU budgetary rules, according to which countries should keep their national debts below 60 percent of GDP, or at least reduce them. France exceeded this limit as early as 2002, with the share of French debt in GDP growing steadily between 2007 and 2017. At present, however, this is not a violation of the rules in the true sense of the word. The European Commission is now failing to enforce them due to the pandemic, and signals are coming from Brussels that this "exception" will last until 2023. Requiring some EU budgetary criteria does not even make sense at present. Among them is the limit of the maximum budget deficit of three percent of gross domestic product, which was exceeded last year by all EU countries except Denmark. However, according to leading French economists, the current exemption should be extended indefinitely. One month ago, economists Philippe Martin, Jean Pisani-Ferry and Xavier Ragot called the need to comply with both the 60% and 3% limits "obsolete" and called for budgetary rules to be amended. According to them, long-term budgetary targets would make more sense than recovering these shares.