It even reached end of 2005 the absolute record of 66

The movement of the interest rate does not Affairs of Bercy. It begins even at cost price to the budget of the State. This is what reveals a recent evaluation of the Agency France Trésor (AFT): according to the agency responsible for managing the debt of the State, the short-term rate rise will mean this year by an additional budget of at least 450 million euros. The AFT is, indeed, three months on the bond market rates, which were still at 2 at the time of the vote in the 2006 budget, are now mounted to 2.55 per cent. However, as Bercy foresaw the rise in the rate of refinancing of the European Central Bank, as bond, after the low point reached last year's yields were not anticipated and therefore was not funded in the budget. Impact is limited, naturally, to the only part of the negotiable public debt for which the State issues bonds in the short term (BTF), or 10 of all. The value of the BTF was, end of March, 88 billion euros. The bulk of the stock of public debt remains consisting of titles in the medium and long term, OAT (617 EUR) and BTAN (EUR 185 billion), in addition to exchange contracts ("swaps") for EUR 52 billion.

40 Billion threshold

The budgetary cost of close to half a billion euros is 39.7 billion euros the burden of repayment of the loan interest, now the second position of the State budget after school education. At this rate, the threshold of 40 billion euros spent on the burden of debt is not not be achieved. It is all the more worrying that, in recent years, the low level of interest rates instead led to the burden of repayment while the weight of the debt was. It even reached end of 2005, the absolute record of 66.8 of GDP, up 1 point higher than that provided Bercy in the fall. Tensions on the short rate likely to complicate the execution of the 2006 budget, the Government is committed to maintaining stable spending volume. Because, judging by the monetary policy of the ECB, rate increases are not be completed. The markets expect two, even three new Tower screw of a quarter of a point by the end of the year. Logically, the three-month rate should follow, which would then be a budgetary burden of some 675 million euros additional full-year.

Rapporteur for the budget to the Senate Finance Committee, Philippe Marini (UMP) believes that "the tension of the interest rate starts to become really expensive for the State". Friday, March 31, Thierry Breton, Minister of economy and finance, had welcomed that the deficit of the France back, end of 2005, below the 3 of GDP. "This is excellent news," it was delighted. "I would like to keep on Earth," warns Philippe Marini, which notes that a deficit of 2.9 of GDP remains "insufficient" to mechanically stabilize the level of public debt. With its low economic growth, the France should limit its deficit to 2.4 of national wealth to achieve. At one year of the presidential election, economic and monetary environment lends less than ever to budgetary largesse.