France Link

France maintains top AAA credit rating from Fitch

Fitch is only major ratings agency to say the country merits AAA, and has kept its negative outlook, suggesting France could be downgraded soon.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

Fitch has maintained the French government's top credit rating - the only major ratings agency left to say the country deserves to be AAA, reports the BBC.

Rival agency Moody's downgraded France in November and while Standard & Poor's cut its rating in January.

However, Fitch has kept its negative outlook, suggesting France could be downgraded soon.

In the eurozone, only Germany has a AAA rating from all three agencies. The UK also has the top credit rating.

A cut to a credit rating means that a country is perceived as more risky to lend to, which means the cost of borrowing from international investors can rise.

When its rating was cut by Moody's last month, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici downplayed the importance of the decision.

France had narrowly avoided falling into recession during the third quarter of 2012, registering 0.2% economic growth from the previous quarter.

Over the course of the past 12 months, however, the French economy has more or less stagnated.

France's Socialist government is enacting reforms that buck the trend of austerity in Europe, such as President Francois Hollande's decision to reinstate retirement at 60 for some workers.

Read more of this report from the BBC.