S&P: France's outlook stable

The Standard and Poor's ratings agency said Sunday that France's outlook remained stable amid a deepening eurozone debt crisis and the fallout from its US credit downgrade. "France's rating has a stable outlook with Standard and Poor's," chief economist Jean-Michel Six told the France Info news programme, declining to speculate on what might cause France's triple-A rating to be lowered. The American agency on Friday stripped the United States of its triple-A credit rating, saying politicians were becoming less able to get to grips with the country's huge fiscal deficit and debt load. A stable outlook means that an agency has no intention in the short term of changing a country's rating. Asked about the markets' expected reaction to the US downgrade on Monday, Six said there was "nothing staggering" to be afraid of. "The markets had been expecting this," he said, adding there was "still much liquidity on the markets".