France 10Y Government Bond Yield: Monthly OAT Data Since 1986
ECB Dataset · Interest Rates
The OAT: the second largest sovereign bond market in the euro area. The OAT-Bund spread, historically stable at 30–50 bps, widened sharply in 2024 amid French fiscal and political uncertainty, creating a new fragmentation risk for the euro area.
France as a new fragmentation risk
For most of the euro era, France was considered a near-core sovereign: the OAT-Bund spread rarely exceeded 80 bps outside of acute crises. This changed in 2024 when political instability (snap elections, coalition fragmentation) and fiscal concerns (deficit above 5% of GDP, debt approaching 115% of GDP) pushed the spread to levels not seen since the 2012 sovereign crisis. Each new tranche of that debt is sold on a published timetable, and the dates on which France auctions BTFs, OATs and index-linked OATs follow a standing weekly and monthly rule.
France’s fiscal trajectory is the key variable: unlike Germany (constitutional debt brake) or Spain (improving fiscal balance), France faces structural deficits driven by pension commitments, defense spending, and political constraints on austerity. A sustained spread above 80 bps signals that markets are re-pricing France from ‘quasi-core’ to ‘semi-periphery’: a significant shift in the euro area’s credit landscape. Retail borrowers meet the same yield one step downstream, in France’s bank mortgage spread over the OAT.
Implications for ECB policy
French spread widening complicates ECB policy because France is too large to rescue through the TPI (Transmission Protection Instrument) without moral hazard concerns, yet too important to let fail. Measured by the ECB Data Portal series for France 10-Year Government Bond Yield. The OAT-Bund spread is now arguably as policy-relevant as the BTP-Bund spread: a development that would have been unthinkable five years ago.
CSV Data Dictionary
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| date | YYYY-MM-DD | First day of the reference month |
| oat_10y_yield | float | French 10-year government bond yield (% per annum, convergence criterion) |
Python Code Example
import pandas as pd
from io import StringIO
import requests
url = "https://data-api.ecb.europa.eu/service/data/IRS/M.FR.L.L40.CI.0000.EUR.N.Z"
resp = requests.get(url, params={"format": "csvdata"})
raw = pd.read_csv(StringIO(resp.text))
df = raw[["TIME_PERIOD", "OBS_VALUE"]].copy()
df.columns = ["date", "oat_10y_yield"]
df["date"] = pd.to_datetime(df["date"] + "-01")
df = df.sort_values("date").set_index("date")
df.plot(title="France 10Y OAT Yield", figsize=(12, 5))Related ECB Datasets
Source & Methodology
Source: ECB / Banque de France, Long-term convergence criterion interest rate
Series key: IRS/M.FR.L.L40.CI.0000.EUR.N.Z
Data terms: ECB copyright notice: the ECB is cited as the source, the data are reproduced accurately and any modification is stated; no Creative Commons licence.
Cite This Dataset
Last updated — 5 November 2026
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