French govt debt interest payments are now 2.3% of GDP, the highest since 2013

The United States is not the only country to find that interest payments on government debt are eating it's budget. France is experiencing the same thing. Here is the chart:

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Debt interest payments are at the same level as they were in 2013, when interest rates spiked due to the eurozone crisis.

French 10-year bond yields were 2.17% in Jan 2013, compared to 3.44% now - see chart below.

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On the surface it seems like France is coping better now than it did in 2013. But a lot of their existing debt has interest rates of below 1% as it was borrowed in the period between 2015 and 2022, when the European Central Bank was doing QE to suppress bond yields.

The trouble comes when that debt needs to be rolled over, and they experience a jump from 1% to 3.44% on the refinanced debt, and that is starting to happen now. We can expect to see French interest payments rise in 2026, leaving less room in their budget for any other spending.

Of course France was in a similar pickle in the 1990's in the lead up to joining the euro in 1999. But French debt was below 50% of GDP back then (it's now 63% of GDP), and they made a serious effort to cut spending in order to qualify for the euro.

Have they got the stomach to do the same thing again?