France slashed on Thursday its growth forecasts for both 2014 and 2015 and said it would miss its public deficit target this year, urging its European peers and their central bank to take steps to boost faltering growth and head off deflation, reports Reuters.
Although he did not specifically comment on the key 2015 target - when France's public deficit is due to come into line with the EU's 3 percent of GDP cap - Finance Minister Michel Sapin said France would cut its deficit "at an appropriate pace."
In comments made in an op-ed in French daily Le Monde, Sapin said the euro zone's second-largest economy would grow by only about 0.5 percent in 2014, half the previous forecast, meaning the public deficit would top 4 percent of GDP, missing a 3.8 percent target.
"The truth is that, as a direct consequence of sluggish growth and insufficient inflation, France will not meet its public deficit target this year despite a complete control of spending," Sapin wrote.
Read more of this report from Reuters.
See Mediapart's coverage of French government's economic worries here.