Like the United States, France is exceptional, only not in a good way. Government spending accounts for 59% of GDP, more than any other Eurozone or G7 country. And despite a debt-to-GDP ratio lower than Greece or Italy, France’s borrowing costs recently outstripped these two southern European nations that along with Portugal, Spain and Ireland were once mockingly known as ‘PIIGS’.
Speaking at a conference last month – the same week that France’s deadlocked parliament held a no-confidence vote – a former finance ministry civil servant spoke bitterly about these developments. “I’ve heard my friends at the ministry saying ‘oh my God, we’re worse than Spain’. Well, we are worse. ‘We’re worse than Belgium’. I mean we speak French better. They now say we’re almost like Italy. I can see how that’s insulting”.
To show you the pain of French civil servants, we have prepared a new visualisation comparing the yield curves of two countries since 2014, using S&P Global iBoxx data. The visualisation starts with France and Greece but you can compare other countries as well. We’ve even provided little flags to give it that World Cup feel.