You never talked with a company director? 
I hate to admit it but I was one 
Whilst at least half of us know it’s absolute bullshit😉
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Any particular boarder or just some random resident?
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Watch out or you’ll be on the gangplank in no time!
Me too, but I got over it.
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France is 3.3 trillion euros in debt.
UK is 2.7 trillion pounds in debt.
Really not a great difference but after 50 years of oil and gas production, 40 years of selling everything worth anything and 15 + years of austerity, I’d expect better.
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Yes, it looks high as the amount owing, but in defence of the UK, it is not badly managed. Current yield is 4.5% and has been slowly rising.
My beef is with the falling French bond yield.
Ah! I see.
According to European Central Bank estimates, in July 2023, there were about 29.624 billion banknotes in circulation around the eurozone, with a total value of about €1.569 trillion.
So if France is 3.3 trillion in debt, then what happened to the missing 1.75 trillion ? Where is this ephemeral cash that the ECB says does not exist ? As I said previously —- it’s just imaginary.
It is, or in theory anyway, locked up in goods and services.
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While I don’t entirely disagree with the point you’re making. The number of bank notes doesn’t represent an equivalent number of Euros given they exist in seven denominations from 5 upto 500. And just as the notes are promises, so are the debts. As the man has just added the real value lies elsewhere.
I’m glad you said “in theory”. 
Perhaps a lot of it is locked in hoarder’s bank accounts where it does no-one any good — not even the owner. Some people have so much money that they could never reasonably spend it in 2 or more lifetimes. How do they manage to sleep at night knowing that there are people not many miles away who go to bed hungry.
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It’s the best estimate issued by the European Central Bank. I presume that they would know if anyone does.
Very soundly, except that they will one day have to pay more in tax for the state in supporting the country & the welfare system. Poorer people & the health care system, Mon Dieu! It’s their own fault for being less fortunate, lazy & scrounging oiks living off the state, being on low wages, if employed at all, having lots of children, they breed like rabbits, because year on year, there are more of them, to up the state benefits & not paying taxes because they can’t even earn enough to pay their way.
Raise wages? Non quelle horreur! When in the not to distant past the salary of a large corporate President or director was 40 times the SMIC, now it’s 200 times. Workers salaries have gone down.
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Well, we have a new loyalist PM. The one before was a centralist. Does Macron think that in his close ally Lecornu, the French masses will be appeased?
The cynic in me is not excited…
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That’s quite a big loss to defence, he was very well rated.
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What always amazes me is that although the National Debt for the UK and France are broadly similar the difference in quality of life is vast. The French invested heavily in the infrastructure of the country during the 70s, 80s and 90 s ie hospitals, education, roads , TGV etc etc. The public services are pretty good though not perfect. The UK seems to have a struggling infrastructure even though it has that similar debt etc.
Thatchers spending cuts plus lack of investment over the decades have come back to bite the UK on the bum.
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I was thinking much the same after visiting UK end of July for a few days and seeing my old home town a shadow of what it once was with nearly every second shop either a charity shop or boarded up and a shopping centre half empty too. The nearest A&E dept is 20miles in two directions yet the town still has a large hospital which used to have a good emergency dept, now its been turned mostly into mental health and geriatric depts and even the maternity unit has gone.
Agreed, at least you can see where France overspent