Fitch Rating Downgraded: Bruno Retailleau Denounces "Decades of Budgetary Wandering," Eric Coquerel Fears France Will "Drag Deeper Into Crisis"

A new rating that has caused a stir. Resigning ministers, including the resigning Minister of the Economy, Éric Lombard, as well as elected officials from opposition parties deplored the downgrade of France's debt rating by the Fitch rating agency on Friday, September 12.

Fitch downgraded France's rating from AA- to A+ on Friday evening, amid government instability and uncertainties over budgetary policies.

The outgoing Minister of the Economy said he had taken note of the decision, which he considered "motivated by the state of our public finances and political uncertainty, despite the solidity of the French economy."

Former Prime Minister François Bayrou, ousted Monday in a confidence vote on the issue of public finances, also pointed to collective responsibility on Friday evening.

"Fitch Rating: A country led by its 'elites' to deny the truth is condemned to pay the price," the MoDem president simply posted on the social network X. In recent weeks, François Bayrou has been issuing alarmist speeches about the state of public finances and the dangers that, according to him, debt poses for the country's future.

The president of the Republicans (LR) and resigning Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, denounced this Saturday on X "decades of budgetary inaccuracy" and rejected the proposals of the Socialist Party (PS) to reduce deficits.

"The downgrade of France's rating punishes not only the chronic instability desired by the engineers of chaos but also decades of budgetary vagaries and social-statist policies," he declared on X.

"It's high time to get things back on track. What the Socialists are proposing will only make things worse," added Bruno Retailleau, as new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu hopes to find common ground with the Socialist Party to push the 2026 budget through the National Assembly, where he lacks a majority.

For her part, the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, called for "regaining stability" and "restoring our public accounts."

"We will achieve this collectively, starting with finding a compromise around a credible and fair budget," she wrote on X.

"The downgrade of the rating must bring us together to react and permanently correct France's budgetary trajectory," resigning Trade Minister Véronique Louwagie (LR) also reacted on X.

On the opposition side, the LR mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, considers that this deterioration is the "confirmation of a financial and budgetary reality already anticipated by the markets (and by François Bayrou, who preferred to sabotage his government before the axe fell)".

The LFI president of the Assembly's Finance Committee, Éric Coquerel, considered for his part that "the only people responsible for this assessment are those who have dramatized the state of public finances for the sole benefit of their political agenda", arguing that "the French debt remains safe and sought after".

"If the next government also chooses to rely on the markets to impose austerity, it will be heading for the catastrophe it itself announced and will lead the country ever further into economic, social and ecological crisis," he added in a statement.

The US agency cited "the fall of the government during a confidence vote" as justification for its decision, which "illustrates the fragmentation and growing polarization of domestic politics." It believes that "this instability weakens the political system's ability to implement large-scale fiscal consolidation," deeming it unlikely that the public deficit will be brought below 3% of GDP by 2029, as the outgoing government had hoped.