From 57.5% to 115.7% of GDP between 1995 and 2025: French public debt doubled. Interest pushed it up by 74.0 points, and nominal GDP growth held it back by almost as much; what remains, in this accounting decomposition, is primary deficits, excluding interest: 50.5 points of a net rise of 58.2, or 87%.
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Updated: 30 September 2026 France, general government, Eurostat series from 1995 to 2025. Download: CSV · JSON · method
France is a telling case for a question every indebted country faces. Its debt ratio doubled in thirty years, and Eurostat’s harmonised series allow that rise to be split, year by year, into the terms of a standard accounting identity. The accounting identity is general; the estimates below are for France.
The result in one sentence. Over thirty years, interest and nominal GDP growth almost cancelled out (net effect +1.6 points): the rise in the debt comes mostly from primary deficits, 50.5 points out of 58.2. This is an accounting decomposition: it identifies which accounting components contributed to the increase, not why the deficits existed.
What moves the debt-to-GDP ratio from one year to the next
Exact identity: dt − dt−1 = (i − g) / (1 + g) × dt−1 − primary balancet + stock-flowt, where d is the debt-to-GDP ratio, i the implicit interest rate (the year's interest / debt at the end of the previous year) and g nominal GDP growth.
Three periods stand out, and the dominant term changes from one to the next.
1996-2007: the interest-growth effect. The ratio gains +8.0 points. The implicit interest rate on the debt then exceeds, on average, nominal growth: the interest-growth effect adds +7.8 points, while the primary balance, close to equilibrium and sometimes in surplus, contributes −2.1.
2008-2019: primary deficits. The ratio gains +32.7 points, of which +26.9 come from primary deficits and +6.1 from the interest-growth effect. The year 2009 alone accounts for 14.2 points: the primary deficit widens and GDP contracts, two effects that coincide with the financial crisis.
2020-2025: nominal growth holds back, deficits push. The ratio gains +17.5 points. In 2020 it jumps by 16.7 points, with the pandemic. From 2021 to 2023, strong nominal GDP growth, driven in particular by inflation, brings the ratio down: the interest-growth effect takes 16.8 points off the ratio, more than primary deficits add (11.5). Since 2024 it has been rising again.
Over the 30 years of the series, the primary balance was in surplus only 4 times. This count describes a recurrence; it does not say whether each of these deficits was desirable, avoidable or cyclical.
Over 1995-2025, the debt-to-GDP ratio went from 57.5% to 115.7%. Decomposing its change year by year, interest pushed it up by 74.0 points and nominal GDP growth held it back by 72.3: their net effect is only +1.6 points. The rise comes mostly from primary deficits, the gap between public spending and revenue excluding interest (50.5 points), and for the rest from stock-flow adjustments (+6.0). This is an accounting decomposition: it identifies which accounting components contributed to the increase, not why the deficits existed.
All else equal, yes: it adds to the borrowing requirement. But over thirty years nominal GDP growth almost offset it: its accounting contribution is 74.0 points, against 72.3 points of reduction due to nominal growth. That balance depends on the gap between the implicit interest rate on the debt and nominal growth: in 2025 the two were almost equal (2.02% and 1.9%).
It can reduce the ratio, by increasing nominal GDP faster than the interest bill. From 2021 to 2023, nominal growth — inflation included — produced an interest-growth effect of −16.8 points, while primary deficits added 11.5; this decomposition does not separate the share of inflation from that of real growth. This is not costless: it reduces the real value of nominal claims, and that loss is borne by someone.
Not necessarily: it is a gap between spending and revenue excluding interest, which can come from rising spending, falling revenue, or a recession that does both at once. These data measure the gap; they do not say which of its two terms should be corrected.
In the public debt dossier — What does French public debt actually cost? · Who really pays for public debt? · And elsewhere?
Eurostat, general government (S.13), national accounts ESA 2010, in national currency: Maastricht debt (gov_10dd_edpt1), interest paid (gov_10a_main, D41PAY), net lending or borrowing (B9), nominal GDP (nama_10_gdp). The primary balance is the general government balance plus interest paid. Each year, the identity is applied as written above; stock-flow adjustments are the residual, and the script stops if that residual differs from the second accounting identity (change in the debt minus the deficit), computed on the same series. The ratios may differ by a few tenths of a point from first releases (deficit and debt notifications, quarterly accounts), following revisions of the national accounts: this page uses Eurostat’s annual series in their latest version. No figure on this page is entered by hand: all come from the same script, re-run with each release of the sources, which also stops if a sentence on the page ceased to be true.
The charts, the data and a ready-made citation, under an open licence. Each chart carries its source, vintage and reading caveat inside the image: reused in a lecture or an article, it does not come apart from what makes it readable.
Over the period, interest and nominal growth almost cancelled out; the rise in the debt is mostly due to primary deficits, excluding interest.
Reading caveat. Accounting decomposition of the change in the ratio, not a causal attribution; the terms partly offset each other.
Eurostat gov_10dd_edpt1 (debt), gov_10a_main (B9, D41PAY), nama_10_gdp (GDP), France, 1996-2025
Year by year, what pushed the ratio up or held it back; in 2021-2023, nominal growth brought it down despite the deficits.
Reading caveat. Points of GDP per year; the three bars add up to the change (black dot), to within a hundredth.
Eurostat gov_10dd_edpt1, gov_10a_main (B9, D41PAY), nama_10_gdp, France, 1996-2025
Lalut, Stéphane (2026). “Why does French public debt rise?”. Eurostat data, retrieved September 30, 2026. https://stephane-lalut.com/en/why-does-public-debt-rise/
The annual decomposition of the change in the debt-to-GDP ratio, France, with its four terms, the implicit interest rate and nominal growth; the same content is available as CSV, one row per year.
Data and charts CC BY 4.0 — free reuse, including commercial, with attribution. Text under copyright — short quotation free, full reproduction on request. The raw series belong to their producers (Eurostat), under their own terms.
