France's finance minister cut the country's deficit forecast for 2015 on Wednesday (3 December) adding that Paris will be well within the E.U.'s 3 percent limit by 2017.
Michel Sapin told a press conference that he had revised France's expected deficit down to 4.1 percent from the 4.3 percent previously forecast, as a consequence of extra savings worth €3.6 billion announced by Sapin in October.
The extra money does not come from additional spending cuts but instead from lower interest expenses from servicing France's debts, a reduction in its contributions to the E.U. budget, and extra tax revenues from a clampdown on tax evasion and a new tax on second homes.
"We have revised the 2015 deficit … without touching the fundamentals of French economic policy," Sapin told reporters.
This post was published at EU Observer
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