France failed to meet its budget deficit target in 2012 and will miss it again this year, as reports showed the country's public debt has risen to a record level, reports The Guardian.
The latest bad news came just hours after French president François Hollande went on live television to reassure the nation of his ability to lead it out of the economic mire.
Bringing France's public deficit down to levels in line with European requirements was a key pledge in Hollande's successful election campaign last year. Reports that he was failing to do so will further rankle the country's key European partners, notably Germany, with whom relations are already strained.
Figures released on Friday showed that two key economic indicators, the level of public deficit and of public debt, had overshot government targets.
The nominal deficit last year was 4.8% of gross domestic product. The target was 4.5%. Insee, France's national statistics agency, reported that public debt rose to €1.8tn (£1.5tn), a record 90.2% of GDP in 2012, up from 85.8% in 2011.
France's socialist government has admitted it will not be able to keep a pledge to lower the deficit to 3% by the end of 2013, as agreed with the European commission. The figure is expected to be about 3.7%, and France has asked for an extension to the deadline for reaching the target.
France has not balanced its books since 1974 under successive governments. Hollande had promised to cut public spending, currently at 56% of GDP, the second highest in the EU.
In Paris, the finance ministry blamed the recapitalisation of the failed French-Belgian bank Dexia along with lower than expected growth and higher EU contributions for its failure to rein in the deficit.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.