France Braces for Debt-Rating Cut as Noyer Takes Aim at U.K.

French leaders are girding for the loss of the nation’s top credit grade, with the central bank governor taking a swipe at Britain as he called debt-rating companies “incomprehensible and irrational.”

Standard & Poor’s said last week it may lower France by two levels in a euro-area downgrade stemming from the failure of the region’s leaders to arrest a debt crisis that began in Greece in 2009 and now presents the biggest threat to the world economy.