the government wants to trivialize the verdict of the rating agencies

Once again, from Friday, the rating agencies will begin to comment on France’s public finances. In government, we are doing everything to minimize the importance of this moment.

The American agencies Fitch and Moody’s will say on Friday April 26 whether France’s rating is downgraded or not. But don’t panic in Bercy, the proof: Bruno Le Maire is flying off Thursday for an official trip to Rabat in Morocco. He will be well back by the time the ratings fall, late Friday evening, but the message is clear: we do not live at the pace of the rating agencies.

Situation already perfectly known

“Agencies are one criterion among others, investors don’t only decide based on that“, says a close friend of the Minister of Finance. A majority executive quips: “The agencies always give the weather forecast from the day before.” Way of saying that the situation is already perfectly known to the financial markets: a deficit has worsened and massive savings have already been initiated with 20 billion euros planned in total for 2024.

A deputy also reassures himself by betting that a deterioration would not have “no consequences on the economic situation of France, nor on our ability to borrow”. This elected official sees only one pitfall in possible degradation: “That will earn us serious attacks from the opposition.”

Bercy ready to respond to opposition attacks

In the midst of the campaign for the European elections, the oppositions risk not depriving themselves of criticizing the management of the government. But Bercy is ready to retaliate by denouncing the “double speak” opponents: “Bruno Le Maire has been preaching in the desert on public finances for two yearssaid a close friend of the minister, while many opposition parliamentarians sent him letters demanding aid for restaurants or businesses in their constituencies!” Bercy therefore invites the opposition to be “responsible” by not launching controversies on the subject.

It is not certain that this invitation to responsibility works, since the RN likes to make fun of “Mozart of finance” or that LR boss Éric Ciotti considers, perhaps a little excessively, that France “takes the path to Greece”. But what a Macronist deputy fears above all is the verdict of Standard & Poor’swhich will take place at the end of May, therefore really just a few days before the European elections. “A degradation at that timehe said, It could be embarrassing.”