France might announce extra action to fight overspending in the coming months, a top official said yesterday against a background of unease on financial markets over debt in the eurozone.
At the beginning of this month, the center-right government announced that it intended to find 100 billion euros (US$124 billion) in the next three years, achieving half of this by cutting spending and half with new revenues.
Claude Gueant, the secretary general at the presidential palace, told the Financial Times newspaper that extra action might be announced by the autumn to ensure that the public deficit was reduced to 3 percent of GDP by the end of 2013, as promised to EU authorities, from a forecast level of 8 percent this year.
France has been largely unscathed so far by market pressures over overspending, but has announced strong action to correct its finances, as have many other European governments.
“There will be other announcements. We have to do more of course — a lot more,” Gueant said.
The government was preparing a budget for next year and a three-year spending plan which would “appear serious and determined,” he said.
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