The French government on Wednesday presented a budget plan based on a buoyant growth prediction that raised eyebrows at France's public finance watchdog, reports Yahoo! News.
Submitting his 2024 budget plan to President Emmanuel Macron's cabinet, finance minister Bruno Le Maire put gross domestic product growth at 1.4 percent for next year, which compares to a 0.8 percent consensus among leading forecasters, and 0.9 percent from the country's central bank.
Pierre Moscovici, a former finance minister and now head of the independent HCFP watchdog that checks the realism of government predictions, called the forecast gap "big, very big" during a senate hearing.
The government was "taking a gamble" with its growth outlook, he said.
But Le Maire stood by his estimate, saying it was "responsible and sincere".
"We must be ambitious, if not optimistic," he added.
Economic growth is the base for a host of other indicator estimates, including the public- sector deficit.
Because of the doubts on growth, "some of the government's forecasts appear quite fragile", Moscovici said.