France's public debt down

For the July-September period in 2012, France reported a total of 1.81 trillion euros (2.4 trillion U.S. dollars) of debt, pulling the debt ratio to the gross domestic product (GDP) down by 1.1 percentage points from second quarter, official data showed on Thursday. According to Insee statistics bureau, the country's debt narrowed by 14.5 billion euros over the period with the debt ratio to the GDP down to 89.9 percent due mainly to 13.8 billion euros cut in the national government debt. Third quarter's cost of security funds declined by 1.1 billion euros while the value of the government's net debt was at 1.64 trillion euros, or about 81.1 percent of the GDP compared to 80.3 percent in the previous three months. The government expects public debt to account 91.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2013. (1 euro = 1.326 U.S. dollars)