LFrance’s debt will continue to climb in 2023 with a new borrowing record. 270 billion euros of debt should thus be raised on the financial markets by the French State. This is 10 billion more than in 2021 and 2022, when 260 billion had been raised. Agence France Trésor, whose mission is to manage the debt and cash of the State, explained this amount by the fact that the State will have to find 305.5 billion euros in 2023, against 306 this year, even though it will no longer be able to count on the precautionary cash created in 2020 to cushion health shocks.
The fall in the state deficit (which is to be reduced from 172.6 in 2022 to 158.5 billion euros in 2023), is also offset by the need to renew previous loans which will mature in 2023. ” In 2023, as usual, we are repaying two-year, five-year and ten-year debt securities. We also reimburse a title at fifteen years and a title at thirty years, ”detailed Cyril Rousseau, director general of Agence France Trésor, during a press briefing.
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To find the money, the State will therefore issue 270 billion euros on the markets. Outstanding short-term securities (BTF) will also increase by 10 billion euros.
Only 18 billion euros drawn from the treasury
Recalling that the State had “accumulated a lot of cash in 2020 to deal with health shocks and hard confinements which did not take place”, Cyril Rousseau specified that 18 billion euros will be drawn from this cash in 2023 against nearly 50 billion this year.
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Since the beginning of the year, the State has borrowed on average at a rate of 1.18% on the markets, whereas it was negative (-0.05%) in 2021, which therefore translates into an increase of the public debt burden. This, including that linked to the Covid-19 crisis, should increase in 2023, according to the government’s budgetary details published on Monday on the occasion of the publication of the 2023 budget, approaching 60 billion euros. It should thus follow the first state budget, Education, which will amount to 60.2 billion euros in 2023.
