France committed to budget, deficit goals

France trimmed its 2012 growth forecast in mid-August to 1.75 percent from 2.25 percent to reflect a weaker economic outlook caused by Europe's sovereign debt crisis.

The government plans 12 billion euros ($16.5 billion) of budget savings over this year and next, including eliminating a series of tax exemptions and imposing new taxes on the very wealthy as it strives to cut its 2012 deficit to 4.6 percent of GDP from a forecast 5.7 percent this year.

Baroin said France was on the right path to reaching these targets and that the government had tailored its budget measures to try to preserve consumers' buying power as much as possible.

"A general tax increase is out of the question," he said in an interview with Europe 1 radio.

On the 2012 budget, he said: "It will be a very exacting budget. We don't have the luxury of giving into the desires of every ministry or every lobby that comes knocking."

Speaking the day after Eurozone finance ministers met in Poland to discuss the bloc's debt crisis and the Greek aid package, Baroin said France was committed to saving the euro.

"We are not giving money to the Greeks -- whatever sympathy we may have for them -- just for the sake of showing solidarity," he said, noting the aid being given to Greece was in the form of loans and not grants.

"It is to save the euro, which is our precious common good."

A recent opinion poll in regional daily Ouest France showed 68 percent disapproved of France increasing its contribution to the Greek bailout, a change from June when 59 percent said they supported the bailout in the name of European solidarity.

Copyright Reuters, 2011