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Paris • France has revised down its growth forecasts and says it will miss its deficit target for another three years, confirmation that Europe's second-largest economy will emerge only slowly from its stagnation.
Finance Minister Michel Sapin said Wednesday the budget deficit would be around 4.3 percent of GDP in 2015 and would not dip under the 3 percent target for European Union countries until 2017, a decade after the last time France hit the target
He revised down the country's growth figures yet again to 0.4 percent this year and 1 percent for next year, down from initial projections of 1.7 percent.
France's economic troubles mirror a broader lack of growth in Europe. Sapin said "an economic reality that concerns all of us" needed to be taken into consideration, although he said France was not requesting a change in the budget rules. Hollande's government had earlier negotiated a delay in meeting the target until 2015.
Like other European countries, France is struggling to trim its deficit after years of excessive state spending. Sapin said the Socialist government would push ahead with $27 billion in cuts next year and $64 billion by 2017, the last year of President Francois Hollande's term.
France has company in missing the deficit target: Last year, it was joined by Britain, Greece, Spain and Ireland among other scofflaws.