PARIS: President Nicolas Sarkozy promised new measures Wednesday to slash France's public deficit in a bid to reassure markets rattled by the eurozone debt crisis.
The measures will be decided on August 24, his office said after the president broke off a holiday on the French Riviera to return to Paris to hold an emergency government meeting on the crisis.
"The head of state reiterated that the commitments to reduce the public deficit are inviolable and will be adhered to no matter how the economic situation evolves," the Elysee said in a statement.
The announcement came after government ministers sought earlier this week to head off speculation that France might be the next major country to lose its AAA status after the United States lost the coveted credit rating last week.
Finance Minister Francois Baroin said after Wednesday's meeting with Sarkozy that the new measures would take into account "global uncertainty" and the downgrading of the US rating by Standard & Poor's.
Sarkozy has asked his finance and budget ministers to come up with new ideas for sticking to France's deficit-reduction promises and these measures will be decided on on August 24, the president's office said.
The French public deficit is estimated at 5.7 percent of gross domestic product this year and the government has vowed to reduce it to 4.6 percent of GDP next year and to 3.0 percent, the EU limit, in 2013.
But the International Monetary Fund said last month that France would probably need extra action to cut its public deficit in 2012 and 2013 as falling growth threatened to make the targets more difficult to meet.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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