The institutional units are the elementary economic units of the national accounts. These units are entitled to own assets, to incur liabilities, to engage in economic activities and to carry out transactions with other units. The institutional sectors group together the institutional units which have a similar type of economic behaviour as defined by their function and their main activity.

Five main institutional sectors form the national economy: Non-financial corporations (S11), Financial corporations (S12), General government (S13), Households (S14), Non-profit institutions serving households (S15). The non-resident units engaged in transactions or having other economic links with resident institutional units are grouped in what is called the Rest of the world (S2).

The national accounts produce a set of accounts for the various institutional sectors.

The current accounts - production account, generation of income account, allocation of primary income account, secondary distribution of income account, redistribution of income in kind account and use of income account - are flow accounts. They are used to obtain the following balancing items : value added, operating surplus and mixed income, balance of primary incomes, disposable income, adjusted disposable income, saving.

The capital account records the acquisitions less disposals of non-financial assets and the capital transfers received and paid. This account enables to determine the extent to which acquisitions less disposals of non-financial assets have been financed out of saving and capital transfers. Its balancing item is the net lending (+) / net borrowing (-)(B9NF).

The gross balancing items of the current accounts and of the capital accounts for the total economy are the major aggregates of the national accounts: gross domestic product, gross national income, gross national disposable income, gross national saving, net lending (+)/net borrowing (-) of the Nation.

Net balances are derived from gross balances by subtracting the consumption of fixed capital.

These accounts are completed by the financial account, the other changes in assets accounts and the balance sheets.

Warning

Each year in September the public deficit of the previous year is updated to take into account the latest accounting data available for social security funds.

The reclassification of SNCF Réseau as APU from 2016 increases the reported deficit by € 3.2 bn in 2016 and € 2.2 bn in 2017. The notified debt is increased by € 35.8 billion at the end of 2016 and by € 4 billion at the end of 2017.

The capital injection into Orano increased the deficit € 2.5 bn in 2017, without an impact on the Maastricht debt.

Finally, the deficit decreased about € 2.8 bn in 2017 because of updated sources: social security funds net lending increased about € 1.3 bn whereas the State deficit decreased about € 1.5 bn due to a revision on the expenditure to support for renewable energies.

Compared to data published on May 30, 2018, the government deficit was revised upwards by € 3.2 bn in 2016 and € 1.9 bn in 2017.

In addition to the publication of May 30, 2018, this update provides the addition of net balances in the institutional sector accounts, for the years 2015 to 2017, tables 7.101-7.103, 7.201, 7.301-7.501.