French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, left, along
with Junior Budget Minister Christian Eckert
announces that the country will miss the European
Union's deficit target for three more years, during
a press conference at Bercy in Paris, Wednesday,
Sept. 10, 2014. Sapin said France's deficit would be
around 4.3 percent of GDP in 2015 and would not dip
under the 3 percent target for EU countries until
2017.(AP Photo/Francois Mori)
PARIS (AP) — France has revised down its
growth forecasts and says it will miss its
deficit target for another three years,
confirmation that Europe's second-largest
economy will emerge only slowly from its
stagnation.
Finance Minister Michel Sapin said Wednesday the
budget deficit would be around 4.3 percent of
GDP in 2015 and would not dip under the 3
percent target for European Union countries
until 2017, a decade after the last time France
hit the target.
He revised down the country's growth figures yet
again to 0.4 percent this year and 1 percent for
next year, down from initial projections of 1.7
percent.
France's economic troubles mirror a broader lack
of growth in Europe.
Sapin said "an economic reality that concerns
all of us" needed to be taken into
consideration, although he said France was not
requesting a change in the budget rules.
Hollande's government had earlier negotiated a
delay in meeting the target until 2015.
The news was not welcome at EU headquarters in
Brussels, since France's dragging economy is
weighing on a Europe-wide recovery.
Simon O'Connor, spokesman for the EU's economic
commissioner, said France must "clearly specify
credible measures" to cut spending and rein in
its deficit in the coming years. Bold reforms
and solid public finances "are essential not
only for France but for the euro area as a
whole," he said.
Like other European countries, France is
struggling to trim its deficit after years of
excessive state spending. Sapin said President
Francois Hollande's Socialist government would
push ahead with 21 billion euros ($27 billion)
in cuts next year and 50 billion euros ($64
billion) by 2017, the last year of Hollande's
term.
France has company in missing the deficit
target: Last year, it was joined by Britain,
Greece, Spain and Ireland, among other
scofflaws.
___
Juergen Baetz in Brussels contributed to this
report.