France enters 2026 with an economy that is stable but increasingly limited by high public deficits, rising debt, and political deadlock. Growth is expected to recover modestly as inflation eases and financing conditions improve, but weak fiscal consolidation and legislative gridlock continue to weigh on the country’s economic prospects.

Credit rating agency KBRA recently downgraded France’s long-term sovereign rating to AA-, citing persistently high deficits and a deteriorating debt trajectory. The agency revised its outlook to stable from negative but warned that without decisive reforms and spending restraint, French sovereign credit metrics would remain under pressure.

“Despite France’s exceptional access to liquidity, a fragmented political environment is weighing on credit metrics by impeding meaningful fiscal consolidation and keeping deficits elevated,” Ken Egan, senior director for sovereigns at KBRA, told Euronews.

France’s economic growth remains modest. GDP expanded by 1.1% in 2024 and is projected at around 0.8% in 2025, weighed down by weak domestic demand, subdued investment, and uncertainty linked to geopolitics and trade fragmentation. Household consumption has remained cautious despite falling inflation and improving real wages, while investment has been constrained by higher interest rates, particularly in construction and other sensitive sectors.

Government programmes such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and France 2030 are expected to provide support, but their impact may be limited without broader fiscal reforms. On the positive side, headline harmonised inflation dropped to 0.9% year-on-year in late 2025, below the European Central Bank’s target and below the eurozone average, offering some relief to households.

Political challenges continue to hinder fiscal execution. President Emmanuel Macron’s second term has been marked by a fragmented parliament and difficulty passing major legislation. Budgetary impasses, no-confidence votes, and frequent use of constitutional tools have slowed reforms, including the 2023 pension measures. Originally expected to generate €11 billion in annual savings by 2027, these adjustments are now projected to deliver just €100 million in 2026.

The fiscal outlook remains vulnerable. The International Monetary Fund projects France’s debt-to-GDP ratio rising from around 116% in 2025 toward nearly 130% by 2030. Rising interest payments will further strain public finances, with debt servicing costs expected to reach €59.3 billion in 2026, up from €36.2 billion in 2020. A primary budget deficit projected at 3.4% between 2026 and 2030 limits the government’s ability to stabilise the debt trajectory.

Despite these challenges, France retains strong market access. Government bonds benefit from deep liquidity, a diversified investor base, and the country’s core status within the eurozone. KBRA notes that while liquidity reduces near-term risks, the lack of fiscal consolidation and ongoing political fragmentation could leave France’s debt burden on an upward path, limiting policy flexibility in the years ahead.

Female footballers may experience more serious injuries and longer recovery times when they are on their period, according to a new study. The research, published Tuesday in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, followed FC Barcelona women’s players over four seasons from 2019 to 2023 in Spain’s professional league.

While the study found that menstruation does not increase the likelihood of injury, it revealed that injuries sustained during bleeding days resulted in significantly longer recovery periods. Lead author Eva Ferrer, a specialist in sports medicine and female health at Sant Joan de Déu Hospital and the Barça Innovation Hub, explained that injuries during menstruation led to three times more days lost to recovery compared to injuries at other points in the menstrual cycle.

For example, soft tissue injuries to muscles, tendons, and ligaments required an average of 684 days lost per 1,000 training hours during menstruation, compared to 206 days for injuries outside of bleeding days. “Small modifications such as longer warm-ups, adjusted high-speed workloads, or additional recovery support may help reduce the severity of injuries if they occur,” Ferrer said.

The study highlights how hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle can affect the body’s response to injury. Fluctuating estrogen and progesterone levels impact muscles, metabolism, and the immune system. Low estrogen can reduce the muscles’ ability to repair themselves and contribute to increased fatigue, pain, and sleep disturbances. Iron loss during menstruation may also lower stamina and slow recovery.

This is not the first time that hormonal changes have been linked to injury outcomes in female athletes. Earlier this year, FIFA funded a study to investigate the connection between the menstrual cycle and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in women’s football. Researchers plan to monitor estrogen and progesterone levels, which have been associated with increased ligament laxity and decreased neuromuscular reaction times.

Simon Augustus, a researcher involved in the FIFA project, said, “We know hormones fluctuate during different phases of the cycle, but we do not yet know how much of an influence that may have on the risk of injury.”

The findings underscore the importance of considering female physiology in sports training and injury prevention. Adjusting training schedules, recovery protocols, and injury management according to the menstrual cycle could help protect athletes and reduce the impact of injuries when they occur.

As professional women’s football continues to grow, experts say integrating menstrual health into coaching and medical practices is key to supporting athlete performance and long-term career longevity.

A new large-scale genetic study suggests that different mental health conditions may have far more in common at a biological level than previously thought. Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and Mass General Brigham in the United States said the findings of this study could eventually improve how mental health conditions are diagnosed and treated, especially for people who live with more than one diagnosis.

The study analysed DNA from more than six million people, including over one million diagnosed with at least one mental health condition. According to the World Health Organization, more than a billion people worldwide live with mental health challenges.

“Right now, we diagnose psychiatric disorders based on what we see in the room, and many people will be diagnosed with multiple disorders. That can be hard to treat and disheartening for patients,” said Andrew Grotzinger, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder and corresponding author of the study.

The research examined 14 psychiatric disorders and found that most of the genetic differences between people with and without these conditions could be explained by just five broad genetic patterns. These patterns involved 238 genetic variants that influence brain development and function. Based on these shared features, researchers grouped the conditions into five categories.

One group included disorders with compulsive traits, such as anorexia nervosa, Tourette’s disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Another encompassed internalising conditions, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. A third group focused on substance use disorders, while a fourth covered neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. The final group included bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which were found to share around 70 percent of their genetic signals.

“Genetically, we saw that they are more similar than they are unique,” Grotzinger said, noting that these two conditions are rarely diagnosed together but have overlapping biological roots.

The findings challenge the traditional view that mental health conditions are largely separate illnesses. Instead, the study suggests that many disorders may be driven by common biological processes. While the results are not yet being used to change diagnostic practices, the team hopes they will inform future updates to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the handbook used by mental health professionals worldwide.

“This work provides the best evidence yet that there may be things that we are currently giving different names to that are actually driven by the same biological processes,” Grotzinger said. “By identifying what is shared across these disorders, we can hopefully come up with strategies to target them in a different way that doesn’t require four separate pills or four separate psychotherapy interventions.”

The study also identified specific biological pathways linked to different disorder groups. For example, genes affecting excitatory neurons were more active in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, while variants linked to oligodendrocytes, cells that maintain the brain’s wiring, were more common in depression and anxiety. Some shared genetic factors may influence brain development even before birth, while others act later in life, potentially explaining why multiple conditions often occur in the same person.