The statistic shows the national debt of France from 2019 to 2022, with projections up until 2029. In 2022, the national debt of France amounted to around 3.19 trillion U.S. dollars. For comparison, the Greek debt amounted to approximately 392.27 billion euros that same year. French national debt and developments in taxationFrance currently has one of the highest national debt levels of any of the world’s nations. Debt in the European Union’s second-largest economy is currently at around 97 percent of GDP. The cost of interest on the country’s debt alone comes in at over 1,600 euros per second; every man, woman, and child in France, of which there are 65.3 million in total, takes a share of just under 28 thousand euros of the debt.On 6th May 2012, the incumbent French President was defeated by François Hollande, leader of the French Socialist Party. The new President vowed to develop and change the tax system of France, announcing wide-ranging economic policies in a bid to balance the nation’s budget and right what he considered to be social wrongs. He pledged and supported the separation of lending and investment banks, as well as proposing sweeping changes to the French tax system. The introduction of the measure of capping tax loopholes at a maximum of ten thousand euros per year and questioning the solidarity tax on wealth, the annual direct wealth tax on those with assets above 1.3 million, were also part of Hollande’s proposals. The President has also signaled his intention to implement an income tax rate of 75 percent on revenue earned above one million euros per year. He stated the allocation of the revenue from this tax would be used to develop the deprived suburbs and to balance the nation's budget by 2017. France is a country brimming with big business and millionaires. The nation is home to the most millionaires in Europe; 2.6 million in total.

Several European Union member states have struggled with high levels of public debt in the period since the Global Financial Crisis. In particular, Greece's debt skyrocketed during the recession which followed the crisis, culminating in a period of intense political and social upheaval during the early 2010s in which the country came close to having to leave the Euro single currency zone. Along with Italy, Portugal, Spain and France, Greece is part of a group of EU members who have seen their debt soar to a value worth over one year's aggregate production in their economies (i.e. 100% of GDP) due to slow economic growth coupled with increasing public liabilities due to the need to provide emergency support to their domestic financial systems. Belgium, while also a part of this group of high-debt ratio countries has quite different circumstances, as its debt ratio has in fact fallen since the 1990s, remaining 20 percent below its 1995 level, even after a spike due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Government debt as a share of gross domestic product has risen for almost all of Europe's largest economies since the mid-20th century. While until the 1970s it was common for European countries to have debt levels of less than 20 percent of their GDP, with the onset of economic crises related to international financial instability and oil price shocks, the long-term slowdown of economic growth in Europe, and the substantial public spending burdens which states had incurred due to the expansion of welfare and social services, European governments began to amass significant amounts of debt.

Which European countries are the most indebted? Italy stands out as the country in Europe which has experienced the largest secular increase in its government debt level, with the southern European country having debt worth 1.4 times its GDP in 2022. Spain, the United Kingdom, and France have also experienced long-run increase in their debt levels to between 90 and 100 percent in 2022. Germany and Turkey, on the other hand, have experienced more gradual increases in their public debt, with both countries having debt worth less than half their GDP. Russia stands as an outlier, due to the fact that its debt level has fallen dramatically since the 1990s. After the eastern European country's transition from communism and particularly after the financial crisis it experienced in 1998, the Russian state has severely cut back on public expenditure, while also having little need to borrow due to the state ownership of the country's vast natural resources.

France’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) registered one of its lowest growth in 2009 (-2.9 percent). One year after the 2008 financial crisis, France faced economic issues. The unemployment rate in the country went from 7.4 percent in 2008 up to 9.1 percent in 2009. Since then, France’s GDP at current prices remained stable, being the second or third largest economy in Europe depending on the year. However, in 2020, during the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the gross domestic product decreases by 7.5 percent in volume. By 2024, it had re-increased by 1.6 percent The evolution of France’s GDP This graph shows that the real GDP in France reached its highest growth in 2021 with 6.9 percent and its lowest in 2020 with -7.4 percent. Apart from these two years and 2009, France’s GDP growth fluctuated between 0.3 and 3.9 percent. The GDP, which is an economic construct that measures a country’s production, is an important indicator of the economic strength of this country. Public debt in France Since 2007, the public debt of France continuously rose reaching 111 percent of the GDP in 2023. France appears to be one of the industrialized countries that borrowed the most abroad and has a public debt higher than the Euro Zone average. In absolute numbers, the country's debt amounted to approximately 3.3 trillion US dollars in 2023.

This statistic shows the percentage change on the previous year for general government consolidated gross debt as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) in France from 2014 to 2020. In 2020, the variation was much greater than in previous years, with a variation of almost 12 percent, resulting from the COVID-19 crisis and the budgetary, economic and financial efforts made by the State to support citizens, institutions and private companies.

The article examines causal relationships between sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) prices for the BRICS and most important EU economies (Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain) during the European debt crisis. The cross-correlation function (CCF) approach used in the research distinguishes between causality-in-mean and causality-in-variance. In both causality dimensions, the BRICS CDS prices tend to Granger cause those of the EU counterparts with the exception of Germany. Italy and Spain exhibit the highest dependence on the BRICS, whereas only India has a negative balance of outgoing and incoming causal linkages among the BRICS. Thus, the paper underscores the signs of decoupling effects in the sovereign CDS market and also supports the view that the European debt crisis has so far had a limited non-EU impact in this market.

The European Commission published today a Flash Eurobarometer on "Possible obstacles to using the euro in international trade" as perceived by companies in France, Germany, Italy and the UK in the aircraft and shipbuilding, energy, financial services, and electrical and mechanical engineering industries. The survey confirms that the euro is widely used by European firms in their invoicing practices with nearly eight out of ten companies invoicing more than 75% of their export in euros. Two thirds of the surveyed firms in France, Germany and Italy said they did not use any other currency for export invoicing than the euro. If companies did use other currencies, this was mostly due to client preference and the important role of the US dollar in global finance. Also, firm's trade invoicing practices appear not to be markedly affected by the European sovereign debt crisis, with around four fifths of the companies saying the crisis had no effect on their use of the euro in trade invoicing.

The results by volumes are distributed as follows:

• Volume A: Countries
• Volume AA: Groups of countries
• Volume A' (AP): Trends
• Volume AA' (AAP): Trends of groups of countries
• Volume B: EU/socio-demographics
• Volume B' (BP) : Trends of EU/ socio-demographics
• Volume C: Country/socio-demographics ---- Researchers may also contact GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences: https://www.gesis.org/eurobarometer

France's total budgetary expenditure in 2025 was nearly 844 billion euros. The first item of expenditure was Refunds and rebates, with more than 148 billion of investment. Advances to local authorities were the second sector of public investment with more than 134 billion euros. The COVID-19 recovery plan Following the economic crisis linked to the COVID-19 pandemic in France, the French government has opened a budget of 36 billion euros for 2021. This recovery plan is intended for individuals, companies, local authorities, and administrations and is based on three themes: the economic, social, and ecological reconstruction of the country. Added to this budget is the emergency plan for the health crisis with aid to businesses.This vast plan, initiated at the very beginning of the crisis, has made it possible to limit the increase in unemployment in France, thanks to partial unemployment and the company closures through subsidies and state loans at zero interest. The economic model in the face of debt Although the economy is rapidly liberalizing in France, its economic system is still based on the principle of the welfare state, which intervenes regularly in the country's economy and finances to ensure that social services are developed for the well-being of its citizens.But this model is very expensive, the country keeps having a rather high debt level. In 2024, the public debt in France reached 112 percent of the GDP.

This statistic shows the national debt in the member states of the European Union in the second quarter of 2024. The data refer to the entire state and are comprised of the debts of central government, provinces, municipalities, local authorities and social security. In the second quarter of 2024, Greece's national debt amounted to about 369.4 billion euros. National debt in the EU member states National or government debt is the debt owed by a central government. No country in the European Union is debt-free, although some are able to manage their debts better than others. Debt is influenced by the economic situation of a country, factors such as unemployment, the rate of inflation or the trade figures have a significant impact on its extent, and are, in turn, influenced by the national debt. The economic crisis has hit some EU countries harder than others; Spain, Ireland and Greece especially have been struggling economically since 2008. Greece’s national debt has skyrocketed over the past few years, and the same can be said about Spain and Ireland. Other EU countries, like France and the United Kingdom have been affected as well, albeit not as severely. The national debt of a country can be reduced by applying several measures: money can be borrowed (for example in the form of rescue packages), austerity programs can be enforced, taxes can be increased or central banks can inject liquidity into the economy through the implementation of quantitative easing policies. Some critics of the policy claim that this could lead to a higher level of inflation, which, if severe enough, could have a detrimental impact on living standards.

In 2010, unemployment rate in France reached a record level of 10.4 percent. Unemployment remains a rampant issue for French economy, being stagnant year-over-year since the financial and economical crisis in 2008. During the first quarter of 2018, more than 1.4 million people aged between 25 and 49 years were unemployed in France.

Change in unemployment since 2008

In 2008, year of the financial crisis, unemployment rate in France reached its lowest level since 2004. That year, France had an unemployment rate of 7.4 percent while, one year before it had reached 8 eight percent. Unemployment is an important economic factor for a country and a measure of a region’s economic health. Despite its low level in 2008, unemployment rate in France increased steadily between 2009 and 2016. In 2015, it even reached its highest level since the mid-2000s with a percentage of unemployed people among the French population which was of 10.4 percent. That year, unemployed people represented 11.5 percent of the urban population in France. However, French unemployment rate seemed to be experiencing improvements in recent years. In 2017, long-term employment rate decreased after several years of constant growth.

Unemployment in France and the EU

European markets were particularly affected by the 2008 global financial crisis and the recession which followed. Nevertheless, Unemployment rate in the EU reached 6.5 percent in January 2019, compared to 7.2 percent one year before and the number of unemployed persons in the European Union and the Euro area is declining since 2018. This improvement seems to be affecting France to a lesser extent. France was one of the EU members with the highest unemployment rate in 2019, and youth unemployment still reaches a record number in the country.

This statistic shows the unemployment rate in France from 1991 to 2024. In 2024, the unemployment rate in France was around 7.37 percent. Population of France A member of the G7 and G20, France is one of the world's most powerful, advanced and emerging economies. With a total population of around 65 million people, France’s economy must adapt itself to employ the growing population. Although the rates of population growth in the past five years have declined in comparison to the population growth rates between 2003 and 2007, there is still an overall growth in the total population. An important factor that directly affects the French economy is the percentage increase in people who are 65 years of age or older and the percentage decline of people between the ages of 15 and 64 years. Because the percentage of the working population is decreasing, mainly people between the ages of 15 and 64 years, and the median age of the population in France is increasing, the economy must adapt to the growing competition by providing more employment opportunities. With the Eurozone crisis and global financial crisis of 2008, the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in France suffered dramatic drops between 2008 and 2009 in comparison to the previous year. Despite having increased between 2009 and 2013, employment in France has not reached the record high of 2008 again yet. In addition, the unemployment rates in the last decade have increased by almost two percent.

Since 2008, and despite the beginning of the financial and economic crisis, France’s GDP has increased gradually. In 2023, the GDP of France reached ***** billion euros, compared to ******* billion euros in 2008. However, with the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it had fallen by almost ***** percent by 2020. Member of the European Union and of the G7, France is one of the leading industrialized country worldwide and in Europe. In 2024, the country's GDP amounted to ******* billion euros. A GDP that is expected to increase in the coming years For a few years now, the GDP of France has increased every year. Only 2009 and 2020 marked a decline in GDP compared to the previous year. Studies have shown that the GDP of France is supposed to increase in the years to come. In 2028, the GDP of France is expected to reach ***** billion U.S dollars. Projections of the real GDP of the country have also shows that it is supposed to grow by between *** and **** percent from 2023 to 2028. An economy that is doing better According to World Bank, services contributed to more than ** percent of the GDP of France. France is ranked in the top 20 export countries worldwide, despite a share of the industry sector in the GDP which has declined in the past years. The country has seen its number of exporting companies rising since 2016, with ****** billion U.S dollars worth of goods which were exported from France that year. France had a total business economy annual turnover of *** trillion euros in 2020 and its employment rate has remained steady in the past years.

As Europe attempts to mount an economic recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NextGenerationEU recovery plan is set to be a key mechanism in helping EU member states to invest in key strategic areas. The recovery packages are comprised of new debt financed collectively at the EU-level, which is then distributed to member states based on their needs. The focus of the packages are on areas such as green energy, sustainable development, and digitalization policies which assist EU member states in boosting their long-term growth.

Public opinion is very much in favor of the NextGenEU plans, with on average 82 percent of respondents saying the plans will ensure the revitalization of the EU. There is a notable divide between member states who have stronger public finances and have experienced fewer economic and political crises over the past decade, and those states who have experienced severe economic and political disruption since the global financial crisis and Eurozone crisis. Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, three countries who have fared well economically over the past decade, all are more positive about their own country's ability to reap the benefits of the NGEU plans than they are about the plans in general. On the other hand, Belgium, France, Greece, and Italy are all strongly positive about the overall impact of NGEU, while remaining skeptical about their country's ability to reap its benefits. This is likely due to the instability in these countries' politics and economies since the Eurozone crisis, with Greece in particular being the most troubled of all EU members over the past decade.

This statistic shows the total population of France from 2020 to 2024, with projections up until 2030. In 2024, the total population of France amounted to 68.44 million people. See the population of Italy for comparison. France's population Although the total French population has annually increased, population growth has been in a slump from 2006 to 2012. However, the decrease of population growth is seemingly irrelative to births in the country, primarily because France’s fertility rate has remained relatively steady over the past decade, based on information from 2011. Yearly population growth could potentially be attributed to a positive lifestyle in the country and a steady economic growth. France is ranked in the top 30 countries with the highest Human Development Index , also known as HDI, which is determined based on life expectancy at birth, literacy rate, education levels and gross national income per capita. France, in this case, was ranked 12th out of the top 20 countries with the highest life expectancy in 2011. From an economic standpoint, France has remained stable, despite several complications within the European Union. Since the 2008 financial crisis, France’s unemployment rate has increased and has experienced several swings year-to-year up until 2014. However, despite fluctuating unemployment rates, GDP growth has very slightly been on the rise on a yearly basis, ever since experiencing a dramatic drop in 2009. Additionally, the GDP itself has continuously been fluctuating since 2008), after enduring a continuous increase in the years prior.

With the collapse of the U.S. housing market and the subsequent financial crisis on Wall Street in 2007 and 2008, economies across the globe began to enter into deep recessions. What had started out as a crisis centered on the United States quickly became global in nature, as it became apparent that not only had the economies of other advanced countries (grouped together as the G7) become intimately tied to the U.S. financial system, but that many of them had experienced housing and asset price bubbles similar to that in the U.S.. The United Kingdom had experienced a huge inflation of housing prices since the 1990s, while Eurozone members (such as Germany, France and Italy) had financial sectors which had become involved in reckless lending to economies on the periphery of the EU, such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Other countries, such as Japan, were hit heavily due their export-led growth models which suffered from the decline in international trade. Unemployment during the Great Recession As business and consumer confidence crashed, credit markets froze, and international trade contracted, the unemployment rate in the most advanced economies shot up. While four to five percent is generally considered to be a healthy unemployment rate, nearing full employment in the economy (when any remaining unemployment is not related to a lack of consumer demand), many of these countries experienced rates at least double that, with unemployment in the United States peaking at almost 10 percent in 2010. In large countries, unemployment rates of this level meant millions or tens of millions of people being out of work, which led to political pressures to stimulate economies and create jobs. By 2012, many of these countries were seeing declining unemployment rates, however, in France and Italy rates of joblessness continued to increase as the Euro crisis took hold. These countries suffered from having a monetary policy which was too tight for their economies (due to the ECB controlling interest rates) and fiscal policy which was constrained by EU debt rules. Left with the option of deregulating their labor markets and pursuing austerity policies, their unemployment rates remained over 10 percent well into the 2010s. Differences in labor markets The differences in unemployment rates at the peak of the crisis (2009-2010) reflect not only the differences in how economies were affected by the downturn, but also the differing labor market institutions and programs in the various countries. Countries with more 'liberalized' labor markets, such as the United States and United Kingdom experienced sharp jumps in their unemployment rate due to the ease at which employers can lay off workers in these countries. When the crisis subsided in these countries, however, their unemployment rates quickly began to drop below those of the other countries, due to their more dynamic labor markets which make it easier to hire workers when the economy is doing well. On the other hand, countries with more 'coordinated' labor market institutions, such as Germany and Japan, experiences lower rates of unemployment during the crisis, as programs such as short-time work, job sharing, and wage restraint agreements were used to keep workers in their jobs. While these countries are less likely to experience spikes in unemployment during crises, the highly regulated nature of their labor markets mean that they are slower to add jobs during periods of economic prosperity.

With a Gross Domestic Product of over 4.3 trillion Euros, the German economy was by far the largest in Europe in 2024. The similarly sized economies of the United Kingdom and France were the second and third largest economies in Europe during this year, followed by Italy and Spain. The smallest economy in this statistic is that of the small Balkan nation of Montenegro, which had a GDP of 7.4 billion Euros. In this year, the combined GDP of the 27 member states that compose the European Union amounted to approximately 17.95 trillion Euros. The big five Germany’s economy has consistently had the largest economy in Europe since 1980, even before the reunification of West and East Germany. The United Kingdom, by contrast, has had mixed fortunes during the same period and had a smaller economy than Italy in the late 1980s. The UK also suffered more than the other major economies during the recession of the late 2000s, meaning the French economy was the second largest on the continent for some time afterward. The Spanish economy was continually the fifth-largest in Europe in this 38-year period, and from 2004 onwards, has been worth more than one trillion Euros. The smallest GDP, the highest economic growth in Europe Despite having the smallerst GDP of Europe, Montenegro emerged as the fastest growing economy in the continent, achieving an impressive annual growth rate of 4.5 percent, surpassing Turkey's growth rate of 4 percent. Overall,this Balkan nation has shown a remarkable economic recovery since the 2010 financial crisis, with its GDP projected to grow by 28.71 percent between 2024 and 2029. Contributing to this positive trend are successful tourism seasons in recent years, along with increased private consumption and rising imports. Europe's economic stagnation Malta, Albania, Iceland, and Croatia were among the countries reporting some of the highest growth rates this year. However, Europe's overall performance reflected a general slowdown in growth compared to the trend seen in 2021, during the post-pandemic recovery. Estonia experienced the sharpest negative growth in 2023, with its economy shrinking by 2.3% compared to 2022, primarily due to the negative impact of sanctions placed on its large neighbor, Russia. Other nations, including Sweden, Germany, and Finland, also recorded slight negative growth.

The financial crisis in 2008 led to steep declines in the hose price in France, followed by some large increases. In 2024, the French property market contracted again, with the inflation-adjusted home price declining by *** percent in the fourth quarter of the year.

Many of Europe's largest economies have seen falling shares of their national wealth taken by the bottom ** percent of the wealth distribution since the 1990s. Italy in particular stands out as a particularly stark case, as the bottom half owned around ** percent of the wealth in the country in 1995, while in 2023 they owned only *** percent. Russia is the other country which has seen a consistent decline in the wealth of its poorest ** percent, with the economic crises of the 1990s causing the poor to rapidly lose their share of wealth, but without any recovery during the years of economic success in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom have seen more moderate decreases in the bottom ** percent share, with Spain and the UK in fact showing increases in their shares during the early 2000s, as their respective housing booms inflated the wealth of the poorest, before retracting during the financial crisis and great recession. Turkey stands out as an outlier among the large European economies, as the share taken by its bottom half has more than tripled since the 1990s, now having a higher share than in Russia and Italy. This period in Turkey has been marked by rapid economic growth, modernization, and urbanization, some of which has benefitted the poorest by providing new economic opportunities.

The net indebtedness of the French electricity company EDF Group amounted to over ** billion euros in 2024, after peaking at **** billion euros two years earlier. To face the energy crisis in 2022, the French government decided to nationalize the company to provide an independent source of energy to the country. As of July 2023, the French government owned *** percent of the EDF Group’s capital. One of the big ones EDF Group was one of the worldwide leaders in energy supply. In 2024, it had a revenue of *** billion euros, although its net income amounted to ** billion euros. A considerable share of its revenues was produced by the French nuclear energy sector, which EDF owned entirely, accounting for about ** gigawatts of installed energy capacity. Energy crisis and EDF losses In 2022, EDF had to face unexpected technical problems in the French nuclear fleet. Since EDF’s electricity production decreased in 2022, the company had to increase its energy imports during the global energy crisis.Meanwhile, the French government set measures to protect the national consumers of electricity, which included low tariffs for energy in 2022 and 2023, and an increase in the share of nuclear energy to be sold at regulated prices. The debt of EDF increased as a consequence of importing electricity at high prices and selling it at a price below the market level.

The statistic shows the growth of the real gross domestic product (GDP) in the European Union and the Euro area from 2019 to 2023, with projections up until 2029. GDP refers to the total market value of all goods and services that are produced within a country per year. It is an important indicator of the economic strength of a country. Real GDP is adjusted for price changes and is therefore regarded as a key indicator for economic growth. In 2022, the GDP in the European Union increased by about 3.61 percent compared to the previous year. Growth trends in the EU compared to the euro area The euro area, which is also called the eurozone, is an economic and monetary union (EMU) which includes 19 of the 27 European Union member states which have formally adopted the euro. Those countries include Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. Member states which have not yet adopted the euro include Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Additionally, there is the so-called Schengen Area, which is composed of EU and non-EU states, and has been established mainly to facilitate travelling in Europe. While some countries, such as Kosovo and Montenegro have adopted the euro unilaterally, they are not formally part of the eurozone. Others have established a monetary agreement with the EU to use the euro, such as Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican, but they do not form part of the official euro area. As can be seen in the chart, annual GDP growth slumped in 2012 and 2013, presumably as a result of the global financial crisis, in both the EU and the euro area. In 2013, growth began increasing ever so slightly and in 2014 the EU regained a bit of stability. However, overall recovery in the EU has been relatively moderate and gradual; growth throughout the EU has been slightly better than in the euro area and is projected to remain slightly better for the foreseeable future. Relatively new member states such as Romania and Czechia, which have not yet adopted the euro, reported the highest annual growth rates in the EU in 2015, and generally, new member states show slightly better growth rates. Also, unemployment has been slightly higher in the euro area compared to the EU for the last ten years (267906). The unemployment rate also remains relatively high for both the EU and the euro area. As for public spending as a share of GDP, these figures are slightly higher in the euro area than in the EU as a whole. The member states with the highest national debt include the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany - some of the oldest members of the euro area. The national debt of the euro area is slightly higher than the national debt of the EU as a whole, underlining the economic situation of both areas.