Hollande unimpressed by Fitch keeping France's triple-A rating
The Fitch ratings agency has maintained France’s triple-A rating, following downgrades by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. But President François Hollande shrugged off the news on a visit to Brussels.
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Fitch Ratings maintained France’s AAA on Friday but warned that it might downgrade it during 2013.
“We hear what’s being said but we do not decide our policies according to one agency or another, we decide it according to the interests of France,” sniffed Hollande at the end of European summit in the Belgian capital.
“France’s real notation, the one that we can check any day on the markets, is the interest rate and, since I have been head of state, the interest rate has not ceased to go down,” he added, going on to warn that the country’s situation is still “vulnerable”.
Fitch expects the debt/GNP ratio will peak at 94 per cent in 2014 and go down to 89 per cent by 2017.
It bases its predictions on a forecast of 0.3 per cent next year and 1.1 per cent in 2014.
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