France to be 'strategic' on new debt issues, finance minister tells WSJ

Oct 7 (Reuters) - France will be "strategic" in its approach to issuing new debt, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Wednesday, as increasing selling pressure on global bonds pushes borrowing costs to multi-decade highs.

The newspaper said France was considering issuing more shorter-term debt, but the ministry followed up by saying there was no change in its issuance plans which remain adapted to market demand.

"The reasonable thing to do considering the value in the (yield) curve, which I see, would lead us to have a shorter maturity," Lescure was quoted as saying by the newspaper. "But it’s at the margin. We’re not traders."

Clarifying Lescure's remarks, the ministry said that France had issued less 30-plus year debt recently as primary dealers have said there has been lower demand for such bonds over the past few months.

It added that maturities on medium- and long-term debt issues tended to be stable over time, though there has been a slight decline in the last two years.

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Barcelona and Leigh Thomas in Paris; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)