The decision by Standard & Poor’s to strip France of its prized AAA credit rating and downgrade eight other European countries slammed a continent struggling with a debt crisis and an economic slowdown.

But beleaguered Europeans can take some comfort: It could have been worse.

Investors had plenty of time to brace for the bad news. S&P put 15 countries, including Germany and France, on notice last month that they faced potential downgrades.

When the news came on Friday, it wasn’t as harsh as it might have been. S&P had threatened last month to knock France’s credit rating down two notches. Instead, it settled for one, demoting France to AA+, just where it put the US credit rating in an August downgrade. S&P spared Europe’s mightiest economy the indignity of a downgrade, leaving Germany with its AAA rating intact.

Austria lost its AAA status, while Italy and Spain fell by two notches and Portugal’s debt was consigned to junk. S&P also cut ratings on Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Analysts note that S&P’s decision to downgrade long-term US government debt in August did nothing to stop investors from continuing to buy US Treasurys, though it did temporarily shake the US stock market.

The downgrades in Europe are “going to create bad headlines for a day or two,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. But “there’s no underlying new information... This will be quickly forgotten.“

European countries, which borrowed heavily before the Great Recession, have struggled with high government debts after the weak economy depleted tax revenues and drove up spending on unemployment benefits and other social programmes. Greece, Portugal and Ireland have already required bailouts.

And bigger countries like Italy and Spain are under financial pressure, partly because nervous investors are demanding higher interest rates to purchase their bonds.

The downgrade of France could have consequences. It will put pressure on the fund that Europe uses to bail out the weakest countries that use the euro. The fund, after all, is only as strong as the countries that contribute to it, and France is the second-biggest contributor after Germany. The bailout fund may have to pay higher interest rates to borrow – and may have to charge higher rates to countries like Ireland that rely on it.

For now, the fund still has a rating of AAA. That means that it can borrow on the bond market at low rates.

The rating agency’s verdict could also shake up French politics. If the loss of its top-notch credit rating means France has to pay higher interest rates, the government will find it harder to cut its budget deficit.

France hasn’t balanced a budget in three decades, and its deficit hit 7.1% of its gross domestic product last year – more than twice the legal limit of 3% for the 17 nations that use the euro. It also is paying a significant amount to help bail out other troubled eurozone members such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

Budget cuts in Italy and Spain have made investors more willing to buy their government bonds, pushing down the interest rates they have to pay.