Italy Still Is Europe’s Debt King, But France Gets Closer

(Bloomberg) -- Italy remained the holder of Europe’s biggest public-debt burden in 2018 even after France’s rose to almost match it. France’s debt reached 2.3153 trillion euros ($2.62 trillion), just 1.4 billion euros below its southern neighbor’s. Italy’s debt as a ratio of economic output -- 132.1 percent of GDP -- is also the second-biggest in the euro region after Greece, and still much higher than France’s 98.4 percent.

--With assistance from William Horobin.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lorenzo Totaro in Rome at ltotaro@bloomberg.net;Giovanni Salzano in Rome at gsalzano@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, ;Sheldon Reback at sreback@bloomberg.net, Zoe Schneeweiss, Kevin Costelloe

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