"There is a state, but it is a totally bankrupt state. That is why we had to put a deficit reduction plan in place, and no siren chant should make us turn away from that objective," Sapin said on Radio J.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault's socialist government has staked its economic credibility on slashing the public deficit to 3 percent of GDP in 2013 from an estimated 4.5 percent in 2012, but has been criticised by leftists for cutting too fast, too deep.

Former Prime Minister Michel Rocard, a moderate Social Democrat, pleaded for a slowdown in the austerity effort in French Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche.

"We need to explain to financial markets that by pushing us into a recession, they risk not recuperating the money they have lent us," Rocard was quoted as saying.