The French national statistics bureau warned that the countries debt has slipped further into the red.

The rise in the public sector debt was mostly due to central government spending, with local authorities and the social security system adding much less to the debt mountain.

The warning was issued only days after the country’s public auditor warned of “worrying” debt levels.

Public debt rose to 99.6 percent of gross domestic product in the first quarter of the year, the Insee bureau said, widening the gulf between the eurozone’s 60 percent of GDP debt limit and the French reality.

France is now 43.6 billion euros ($49.6 billion) deeper in hock than at the end of 2018, when the debt to GDP ratio stood at 98.4 percent.

President Emmanual Macron’s government is targeting a ratio of 98.9 percent for the end of this year.

Via France 24