France added to its debt pile in the first quarter, official data showed Thursday, taking the country further away from meeting eurozone debt criteria. France's public debt rose by 40.7 billion euros ($45.2 billion) in the first three months of the year, the national statistics office Insee said. This takes debt to 97.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), from 96.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015. That compares with the 60-percent debt ceiling that eurozone countries have promised to respect.
It is also already above the French government's own targets of 96.2 percent for all of 2016 and 96.5 percent for next year. But the French finance ministry said it was still on track to meet this year's debt target. "Our objective for 2016 is not in doubt," Finance Minister Michel Sapin's office said in an email to AFP. A debt increase in the first quarter was not unusual "because the government borrows more at the start of a year than later on", which meant the end-year debt level was often below peaks reached earlier, it said.
On Wednesday, the French Court of Auditors warned of a great risk that France will miss its 2017 deficit target because of increased spending since the start of the year. Francois Hollande's government has repeatedly promised that it will bring the public sector deficit to 2.7 percent of GDP next year, below the three percent limit required by eurozone deficit rules. But extra spending over recent months makes this unlikely, said the Court, which oversees public spending.
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