Frankrijk belooft Brussel alles te doen om begrotingstekort te verminderen (en)

French finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday (4 May) promised to "fight on all fronts" to reduce Paris' deficit to below EU limits and unveiled a sweeping series of measures to achieve this.

Mr Sarkozy - in his first press conference as France's finance minister - issued a pledge to get France's budget deficit below the EU ceiling of three percent of GDP saying, "France's word must be respected".

To achieve this, he ordered a fresh round of privatisations, the sale of about 600 tonnes of gold and massive cuts in public spending.

But he also called for the deficit rules to be made more flexible.

More flexible rules wanted

Although he did not advocate a change in the three percent limit, he said that the rules need to be made "much more flexible".

He said that the rules were "too lax" in times of strong economic growth and "too severe" in times of recession. "We need to be able to judge the strength of the deficit over the length of the cycle", said Mr Sarkozy.

Paris' budget deficit was 4.1 percent of GDP last year, smashing the three percent limit and calling into question the effectiveness of the rules.

Despite the measures unveiled yesterday, most analysts believe that the deficit will remain above the ceiling next year.

Figures appeared recently in the French press suggesting that the deficit would remain at four percent.