SALON

Tuesday, Feb 19, 2013 1:45 PM UTC

Hollande says France to miss 2013 growth target

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Hollande says France to miss 2013 growth targetFrench President Francois Hollande, right, stands next to the honor guard as he listens to the French national anthem during a ceremony at the Eleftherios Venizelos airport, Athens, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. Hollande is in Greece on a one day official visit. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)(Credit: AP)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — France’s economy, Europe’s second-biggest, will grow by less than previously thought in 2013, President Francois Hollande confirmed Tuesday.

While on a six-hour visit to Greece, Hollande said “everyone knows that for 2013, we will not reach our target, which was 0.8 percent.”

He said a new growth target will be announced by the end of next month.

France is waiting for the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, to release its economic forecasts for the 27-country EU on Friday.

Based on those figures and a review by a top French economic advisory panel, the government will be able to produce what Hollande termed “incontestable” estimates by the end of March.

France’s economy stalled in 2012 as a slowdown in Europe dented activity at a time when the government is enacting deficit-reduction measures. France contracted by 0.3 percent in the final quarter of 2012 from the previous three-month period. If it contracts again in the first quarter of 2013, it will be back in recession — officially defined as two straight quarters of negative growth.

Earlier, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also said his country would have to revise its growth forecast downwards for this year. “At the European level, things aren’t going all that well now, we are going to have to revise downward,” he said on RTL radio.

The economy of the 17 EU countries that use the euro is in recession. In the final quarter of 2012, a contracted by a quarterly rate of 0.6 percent.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
219 points220 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
161 points162 points | comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
120 points121 points | 33 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
49 points50 points | 8 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
27 points28 points | 1 comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations