France insists it will tackle its debt issues amid market skepticism

Spreads on French bond yields over German ones have narrowed but remain elevated. French politicians insisted the country would get to grips with its debt issues, but economists — and markets — signaled skepticism. Spreads on French bond yields over German ones have narrowed somewhat, but remain at elevated levels, a result of traders’ worries that French political polarization would hamper efforts to rein in a mammoth deficit and a legacy of state spending that has left a huge debt pile. France’s finance minister told The Wall Street Journal that Paris would do “ whatever it takes ” to push through spending cuts, including bypassing parliament, though previous governments have been felled by divisions over the budget, while ING was unconvinced that far-right leader Marine Le Pen could actually deliver her plan for even more aggressive austerity.