In the eurozone, the end of extraordinarily low interest rates and extensive quantitative easing policies will put increasing pressure on government budgets , while continued low growth and already high debt burdens will render government finances less than solid; while the extensive reform of the euro area over the past 15 years has made the single currency much more resilient, it is still more vulnerable to endogenous and exogenous shocks than regular national currencies, such as the U.S. dollar. France recently suffered a sovereign credit downgrade in the wake of an unexpectedly weak fiscal performance, large deficits and increasing government debt, which now exceeds 100% of GDP. Markets took the news in stride, and France's financing costs barely changed.