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The French central bank reported a pre-tax profit of 6.0 billion euros ($7.4 billion), up 8.3 percent from 2016 as total assets on its balance sheet rose 25 percent last year.
As a result, the Bank of France would pay corporate tax of 2.69 billion euros and a dividend of 2.3 billion euros to the French government.
The Bank of France said the increase in its balance sheet had not come at the cost of more risk since most of the assets purchased were French government bonds. Therefore, it decided to leave its general risk provision fund at eight billion euros.