French Prime Minister Francois Fillon warned yesterday that the country's public finances were in a "critical" state and that drastic action is needed.
"We had a 1.15 billion [euros (US$1.62 billion)] deficit at the end of 2006," Fillon told RTL radio. "The situation is critical."
Fillon said that France had not had a balanced budget "since 1974."
"Any company head, any head of a family, any farmer understands that we cannot continue to borrow to finance operating expenses," he said.
European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet also said on Sunday that France's public finances were in "very great difficulty" with the worst public spending to output ratio in the EU.
"I would say that French public finances are in very great difficulty," Trichet said in an interview on Europe 1 radio.
"In 2007, according to statistics from the European Commission, France will the country spending the most in public expenditure in relation to gross domestic product, not only within the eurozone but among the 27 members of the European Union," he said.
"When you look at the figures, it is worrying to see that the development of France's public finances has on average been significantly worse than that of other European countries," he said.
France "has not been well managed for a long time" and "has enormous progress to make," said Trichet, himself a Frenchman and former governor of the French central bank, the Banque de France.
"The deficits of today weaken the economy, and our spending today will weigh on our children and on our grandchildren," he said.
Trichet's comments came after Fillon had said on Friday that the French state was "in a state of bankruptcy" -- comments which Trichet said the prime minister was "right" to make.
Fillon had said on a visit to Corsica that France "has been in chronic deficit for 15 years ... and has never voted through a balanced budget in 25 years."
Since coming to power in May, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has caused alarm among Paris's eurozone partners for his plans to cut taxes in order to jumpstart economic growth -- plans that make much harder the goal of balancing France's budget.
Eurozone finance ministers committed in April to balance their budgets by 2010, but Sarkozy duly warned in July that this goal might not be achieved until 2012.
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