What it brings
Many varied lenders, at home and abroad, lend at lower rates than a closed market would. The euro removes the currency risk that weighs on countries indebted in a foreign currency. Abundant French saving remains a base.
Question 6
Who lends to France?
In 2025, public administrations spent €153bn more than they collected. Someone lent that money: French households and companies first, and the rest of the world, which now holds 57.5% of the State’s negotiable debt.
57.5%of State debt held outside France (Q1 2026)
17.4%household saving rate (Q1 2026)
-0.4%of GDP: current account with the rest of the world in 2025
-30%of GDP: what France owes the rest of the world, net (2025)
Four pockets
What the State borrows, someone lends
Picture France as a house with four occupants: families, companies, the State, and the neighbours, meaning the rest of the world.
At the end of every year, each one does their accounts. Either they spent less than they earned and have money left over, or they spent more and are short. Whoever is short found the money with someone who had some left. In the house, what some lack is always equal to what others have left.
2024, in euros
That year, France produced about €2,950 billion.
- The State: it is short by 5.8% of GDP, about €170 billion.
- Families: they have 5.9% of GDP left over, about €175 billion.
- Companies: roughly balanced: non-financial companies had 1.3% of GDP to spare, the financial sector, banks and insurers, was short 1.3%.
- The neighbours: nothing: they did not have to lend.
The €170 billion the State was short of is the money families had set aside. The neighbours sit at zero: not because they lent nothing, but because what they lent to France and what France placed with them cancel out. In net terms, that year, the country did not need foreign saving.
A bar is neither income nor profit. It is what each occupant has left once it has spent and invested. A company that earns a lot and invests as much ends at zero, like a family that saves €20,000 and spends €20,000 on renovations.
How to read the chart: above the line, net lending, that is “I have some left”; below, net borrowing, “I am short”. One colour per occupant. Every year, what rises above is exactly as tall as what dips below. Shaded years are those when the neighbours lent. Hover a bar for the detail.
-10-8-6-4-20+2+4+6+8+10
Financial crisisCovid-19199520002005201020152020
- Families
- Companies
- The neighbours (rest of the world)
- The State (public administrations)
- Years when France borrows abroad
- Before 2009, orange sits below the line. Families and companies set aside enough for the State, and France even lent to the neighbours (-1.6% of GDP a year on average).
- From 2009 to 2019, orange moves above the line. Family and company saving no longer suffices: the neighbours lend the difference, 0.4% of GDP a year on average. That is the trade deficit seen from the other side.
- In 2020, Covid. The State borrows 8.9% of GDP; locked-down families save 6.9%; the neighbours bring 1.9%.
- Since 2021, families save a lot, the neighbours almost nothing in net terms (+0.4% a year), and the State still borrows 5.6% of GDP a year.
National accounts, Eurostat: net lending or borrowing by sector. Published a year after the debt figures: latest year 2024.
With the outside world
A goods deficit, a services surplus
France buys more goods abroad than it sells: -1.9% of GDP in 2025, or €-58bn, mostly energy and manufactured goods. It sells more services than it buys: +1.5% of GDP (€45bn), tourism and business services first. With income flows, the current account comes to -0.4% of GDP: roughly what the rest of the world lent to France over the year.
19992025
GoodsServicesCurrent account
Balance of payments, Eurostat and Banque de France, since 1999.
The running total
What France owes the rest of the world
Year after year these balances add up. At the end of 2025, France’s liabilities to foreigners exceeded its assets by 30% of GDP. The European Commission treats anything beyond 35% of GDP as worth examining.
EU scoreboard threshold: −35%
19992025
Net international investment position, Eurostat (macroeconomic imbalance scoreboard).
Who holds the bonds
57.5% of State debt is held outside France
On 31 March 2026, 57.5% of the State’s negotiable debt (negotiable State debt, at market value) was held by non-residents: foreign funds, central banks, insurers and banks. The rest is held by French insurers, banks and funds, and by the Banque de France, which bought bonds from 2015 to 2022 under the ECB’s programmes and has held fewer since.
Banque de France — Émission et détention de titres français, T1 2026
Is it a problem?
Two readings, both serious
What it exposes
The larger the foreign share, the more the rate demanded depends on market mood and rating agencies, and the less on national choices. And even in years when the country borrows nothing abroad in net terms, the State itself places a large part of its new borrowing with foreign investors: it is French saving that, on the other side, goes to be invested elsewhere.