France: real GDP evolution 2000-2023

France’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) registered one of its lowest growth in 2009 (-2.9 percent). One year after the 2008 financial crisis, France faced economic issues. The unemployment rate in the country went from 7.4 percent in 2008 up to 9.1 percent in 2009. Since then France’s GDP at current prices remained stable, being the second or third largest economy in Europe depending on the year. However, in 2020, during the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the gross domestic product decreases by 7.5 percent in volume. By 2022, it had re-increased by 2.6 percent

The evolution of France’s GDP

This graph shows that the real GDP in France reached its highest growth in 2021 with 6.9 percent and its lowest in 2020 with -7.4 percent. Apart from these two years and 2009, France’s GDP growth fluctuated between 0.3 and 3.9 percent. The GDP, which is an economic construct that measures a country’s production, is an important indicator of the economic strength of this country.

Public debt in France

Since 2007, the public debt of France continuously rose reaching 111 percent of the GDP in 2023. France appears to be one of the industrialized countries that borrowed the most abroad and has a public debt higher than the Euro Zone average. In absolute numbers, the country's debt amounted to approximately 3.3 trillion US dollars in 2023.