More than 500 billion euros in ten years: these fortunes swallowed up by France just to pay the interest on its debt

“Our house is burning and we look elsewhere,” Jacques Chirac said in 2022 about global warming. When it comes to public finances, it’s more like: “Our house is leaking and we look elsewhere.” France has indeed become a veritable sieve. Over the years, its budget is increasingly burdened by the repayment of interest on its debt, which is spiraling out of control. That’s as much less money for other essential positions such as education, health or security. Worse, it accentuates the deficit, plunging the country into a downward spiral, which must go into further debt to repay its debts.

Each year, the debt burden, that is to say the sums spent by France to pay the interest on its public debt, represents several tens of billions of euros. It even ranks as one of the main expenditure items in the state budget. With nearly 80 billion euros in 2026, it will become the first of these this year, ahead of defense (68.3 billion) and education (64.5 billion). For comparison, the justice budget is almost 7.5 times lower. In other words, for one euro spent in prisons or courts, 7.5 euros go to interest on the debt.