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How to build a bar chart race

France now pays more to borrow than Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, the countries at the centre of Europe's last debt crisis. I wanted to show that reversal as it happened, so I built this bar chart race. Here is how I did it, step by step.

You can follow along with the same data or use your own. The same techniques work whenever one country, company or product is the story.

10-year government bond yields, 30-day rolling average, October 2021 to October 2026. Source: Countryeconomy.com.1

Is this another sovereign debt crisis?

In 2010 Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain were at the centre of the European debt crisis. They became known as the PIIGS, and their borrowing costs soared as investors questioned whether they could pay their debts. France sat at the core of the euro area, well away from the trouble.

Five years ago that was still true. On 18 October 2021 France paid 0.14% to borrow for ten years, the lowest of the six countries on this chart. It then climbed past them one by one: Ireland in January 2024, Portugal in July 2024, Spain in October 2024, Greece in June 2026 and finally Italy on 18 August 2026.2 By 16 October 2026 France paid 4.76%, more than Italy at 4.54%, Greece at 4.39%, Spain at 4.08%, Portugal at 3.96% and Ireland at 3.63%.

So the question is whether Europe faces another sovereign debt crisis, and whether this time it begins at the core, with France, rather than at the edges.

How I built it

The data is the 10-year government bond yield for each country, from Countryeconomy.com. I smoothed it into a 30-day rolling average, so the race shows the trend rather than every daily wobble.3

Pick the countries that frame the question

I compared France with the PIIGS because they were at the centre of the last crisis. Next to them, France's climb asks the question without a single word: is the core becoming the new periphery?

Choose a bar chart race, not a line chart

Six countries on an animated line chart quickly become a tangle. The lines cross and recross, and the eye can follow none of them. A bar chart race shows one simple thing at every moment, who pays the most, and lets you watch the order change.

You can do everything in this tutorial inside the Eeagli platform. Just follow these steps.

  1. Log in and create a new project. Choose Bar Chart Race (Vertical) as the chart type.

    Start a new project as a vertical bar chart race.

  2. Open the Data Editor, import your file and check that the date column drives the timeline and each country becomes a bar.

    Drop in your file and every country becomes a racing bar.

Use colour to point at one country

Colour is the strongest signal on a chart, so I used it once. France is teal. Every other country is a light off-white, so the PIIGS are still there to compare against, but they step back and the attention stays on the French bar as it climbs the ranking.

  1. In the Data Editor, keep France teal and change the other five series colours to off-white.

    One colour for the story, off-white for everything else.

Say exactly what the chart compares

The title names the comparison and the subtitle says what is measured, down to the 30-day average. A short source line and the Built with Eeagli.com line sit at the bottom.

  1. Type your title. If it wraps and crowds the top of the chart, group the title, subtitle and date, move them down together, then ungroup them.

    Group the heading to move it in one go.

  2. Add the subtitle and the source, then add a text box for the Built with Eeagli.com line.

    Say what is measured and where it comes from.

Flags make the race easy to follow

In a race the bars keep swapping places, so a name under each bar is not enough. A flag is recognised in an instant, and when it travels with its bar the reader never loses track of who is where.

  1. In edit mode, add each country's flag from the media library, scale it down and place it under its bar.

    Add a flag from your media library and scale it to fit.

  2. Move the country names down to make room. Select the x-axis labels, open Axis labels and set Offset from axis to 50.

    Push the names down so the flags have room.

  3. Tie each flag to its bar. Select the flag, open Tracking and switch on Track, then choose the flag's country as the Series and set the Anchor to Bar axis label. Do the same for every flag.

    Flags that track their bars move with them as the order changes.

Build it yourself

One highlight colour, flags that travel with their bars and a title that says exactly what is compared. These choices work for any bar chart race, whether you are comparing countries, companies or products.

So why don't you try it yourself? Sign up and build a bar chart race for LinkedIn, Instagram or your next presentation.

Sign up and build it

Footnotes

  1. Sources: daily 10-year government bond yields for France, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain from Countryeconomy.com. Figures are 30-day rolling averages, in percent a year. Data to 16 October 2026. ↩
  2. These are the dates France moved above each country for the last time in this data. It first passed Greece in January 2025 and Italy in November 2025, then fell back below them before overtaking for good. ↩
  3. Each point is the simple average of the weekday yields in the 30 calendar days up to that date. Where a country published no quote on a weekday, the gap is filled with a straight line between the nearest quotes; 33 of the daily values are filled this way. ↩