In-depth analysisPublic finances
The France-Germany spread: what markets charge France for
The yield gap does not track the debt stock: what does it react to?
Version 2026.1 · Public data frozen on 30 September 2026 · 5 catalogue series · Lire cette analyse en français
The question
In 2025, France borrowed at ten years on average 76 basis points — that is 76 hundredths of a percentage point — dearer than Germany, according to the European Central Bank's (ECB) interest-rate statistics. This gap, which markets call the spread, was 38 basis points in 2019 and 38 in 2021; it has gained 38 basis points in four years.
The question is one of reading: does the spread measure debt? If it did, it would have nearly doubled between 2007 and 2025 like the debt ratio. It did something else, and this page shows what it really reacts to — and what it does not say.
What the data show
Thirty-five years of data read in four regimes. Before the euro, the gap was wide — 122 basis points in 1990, when the two currencies were distinct and the franc carried a currency premium. From 1999 to 2007 it almost vanishes: 9 basis points on average, and the series minimum, −5, dates from 1997, on the eve of the euro — markets treated French debt as the equivalent of German debt.
The financial crisis, then the euro-area crisis, reopen the gap: 25 basis points in 2008, 71 in 2011, 104 in 2012 — the peak since the euro. It then narrows without returning to zero: 43 basis points on average from 2013 to 2021. The fourth regime begins in 2022: 56, 56, 65, 76 basis points, a steady rise that takes the gap close to its 2011 level.
Meanwhile, debt went from 65.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 to 91.7% in 2012 and 115.7% in 2025. Between 2012 and 2025, the ratio gained 24.0 points of percentage and the spread first halved: the premium does not track the stock.
Chart 1 of 1 · basis points (hundredths of a percentage point), annual average · Period 1990-2025
Ten-year yield gap between France and Germany since 1990
Is the current gap high relative to the past thirty-five years?
Reading
- France-Germany ten-year gap
What to see
- Four regimes: pre-euro, near zero from 1999 to 2007, the 2011-2012 crisis, and the climb since 2022.
- The 2025 gap approaches that of 2011, without a European crisis.
What this does not mean
- A gap is not a rate: France borrowed more cheaply in 2025 than in 1990 despite a wider gap than in 2019.
Limits · Difference of ECB ten-year convergence rates, annual averages computed by the repository; no daily quote. Source · European Central Bank (ECB)
What has changed
What has changed since 2022 is that the gap rises without a European crisis. In 2011-2012, France was paying for contagion from the Greek, Italian and Spanish crises; in 2024-2025, it pays alone — the gap with Germany widened while that of other euro-area countries narrowed, a movement this page does not measure. The visible trigger is fiscal: a deficit of 5.4% of GDP in 2023, 5.8% in 2024, 5.1% in 2025, with no path back below three per cent, and political instability that made the adoption of budgets uncertain.
The scale remains moderate: 76 basis points is less than the 2012 peak, and the French rate itself (3.37%) remains far from its pre-euro levels. But the direction is new — it is the first time since 1990 that the gap has doubled in four years outside a recession and outside a European crisis.
The visible relationships
What cannot be claimed
An annual average smooths episodes: the spread crossed far higher thresholds on some days of 2024 and 2025 than on average over the year. This page carries no daily quote, and therefore cannot describe the peaks.
Nor does it carry the spreads of other euro-area countries — Italy, Spain, Belgium — or the rating agencies' grades; the claim that France “pays alone” since 2024 is consistent with what those sources publish, but it is not measured here.
Finally, a sovereign rate is a macroeconomic quantity, not a market signal to trade on: this page says nothing about what a security is worth, nor what should be done with it.
The events that shed light on the path
Where we stand today
In 2025, the last closed year, the gap was 76 basis points on a rate of 3.37% on an annual average, with debt at 115.7% of GDP and a deficit of 5.1%: the gap at its highest since 2012, the rate at its highest since 2009. Since then the French ten-year yield has risen further — 4.00% as a monthly average in August 2026, according to the ECB — and debt reaches 119.0% of GDP at the end of the second quarter of 2026, according to the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE), provisional figure. The monthly gap with Germany is not served by this page.
What the reader can take away
The spread does not charge for debt: it charges for the credibility of its reduction, and for the comparison with neighbours. Debt that rises during a shared crisis costs nothing extra; an ordinary deficit that does not close, in a country with no majority to reduce it, costs a few dozen basis points — modest in rate terms, significant on hundreds of billions borrowed every year.
What the reader can keep: on a rate above three per cent, France controls only a fraction — the gap — and it is that fraction the budget debate moves. An account gives access to the full reading: the premium against the stock, the premium against the deficit, what the gap contains, and the chronology of the four regimes.
Sources and method
Every figure on this page is read from an identified public series, or computed from it according to the stated rule. The series are those of France ÉcoScan's catalogue, checked against their producer and frozen on the date given at the top of the page.
- Spread FR-DE (pts) — European Central Bank (ECB) · data.ecb.europa.eu
- 10-year OAT yield, annual average (%) — European Central Bank (ECB) — ESCB statistics compiled by the Banque de France · data.ecb.europa.eu
- Public Debt (% GDP) — INSEE — annual national accounts, base 2020 · www.insee.fr
- Public Deficit (% GDP) — INSEE — annual national accounts, base 2020 · www.insee.fr
- Public Deficit — INSEE — annual national accounts, base 2020 · www.insee.fr