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Moody's, released Tuesday, showed nominal budget deficits However, "the aggregate share of mandatory spending in euro area budgets has actually risen to 76.3 percent of total spending from 74.5 percent in 2008."
"This increase is a response to social security and assistance, pensions, education and health care," the report said.
France, traditionally seen as a welfare state, has promised in its 2019 budget plan to reform the way benefits are calculated.
According to Vincent Juvyns, Global Market Strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, the commitment to reform is one of the big differences between France and Italy. While the government in France wants to go ahead and change certain areas, the executive in Rome has had a backtracking on key reforms that the previous government has implemented, including an overhaul to the pension system.
Florian Hense, an economist at Berenberg, also told CNBC via email that it's a bigger budget than Italy's, but added that the big difference is the rhetoric coming from other countries.
"Taken at face value, the French budget is not so much better than the Italian, but in fact worse.But, while France is credibly working on improving its long-run growth potential (by strengthening both the demand and supply side of the economy), Italy is doing the opposite, "he said.
Overall, France has promised to lower its total debt in 2019, but by a very thin margin. While France's debt is set to hit 98.7 percent of GDP in 2018, it is forecast to fall by 0.1 percentage points in 2019 to 98.6 percent.
Looking at Italy, the government said that the country's debt ratio will decline from 131.2 percent of GDP in 2017 to 126.7 percent in 2021.
