France—Economic Challenges and Opportunities

Goldman Sachs Research analysts think France's main economic challenge will be to stabilize public debt. To that end, the government will eventually need to run a 1% of GDP primary surplus, compared with today’s 3% primary deficit. The effort should be focused on reducing public spending as a share of GDP given limited room for further tax increases. In addition, fiscal policy in France could adopt a more tailored response to future economic shocks and would benefit from a more robust independent evaluation framework.