We lowered to 'AA+' from 'AAA' our unsolicited long-term sovereign credit ratings on the Republic of France on Jan. 13, 2012. We equalize the long-term ratings on French public hospital group Assistance Publique – Hopitaux de Paris (AP-HP) with those on the Republic of France to reflect our opinion that there is an "almost certain" likelihood that AP-HP would receive timely and sufficient extraordinary support from the French government. Consequently, we are lowering our 'AAA' long-term issuer credit ratings on AP-HP and removing them from CreditWatch with negative implications, where they were placed on Dec. 7, 2011. The negative outlook reflects that on France. On Jan. 17, 2012, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services lowered to 'AA+' from 'AAA' its long-term
