President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his finance and budget ministers to find new ways to prune the public deficit on Wednesday, as markets fretted over France's strained finances and banks following a US debt downgrade.
Shares in French banks -- among the most exposed to Italian and other peripheral euro zone government debt -- slumped in afternoon trade as fears about the currency bloc's debt crisis moved back to the forefront of investors' concerns.
Sarkozy -- who played a leading role in frantic diplomacy over the weekend aimed at halting two weeks of market turmoil -- had earlier summoned his top ministers and central bank chief to emergency talks, interrupting the summer recess.
He urged all political parties to support his proposal for a constitutional rule to limit future deficits which is set to be defeated in one blow if put to a special two-chamber parliamentary vote.
Budget Minister Valerie Pecresse said after the talks she would target tax loopholes in the 2012 budget. "We will not deviate one inch from our deficit-cutting targets," she told BFM television.
France -- the most indebted of the euro zone's six AAA-rated states -- has vowed to cut its deficit to 4.6% of GDP next year and 3% in 2013, down from 7.1% in 2010 and an expected 5.7% this year.
Yet public debt is way above the euro zone's recommended 60% of GDP ceiling at around 85% this year, and the market turmoil deals a blow to hopes investment will pick up after a bleak second-quarter.
Sarkozy asked Pecresse and Finance Minister Francois Baroin to outline suggestions to speed up deficit cuts at an Aug. 17 meeting with himself and Prime Minister Francois Fillon. A further meeting on Aug. 24 will formally agree on the steps.
"Whatever the impact of global uncertainty, of the announcement of the US downgrade by S&P, the nervousness of markets, regardless of any of these external parameters we will take the necessary measures to reach our targets," Baroin told reporters after the meeting.
DiveStandard & Poor's (S&P) has reaffirmed France's AAA rating and said that as things stand its outlook is stable, but markets remain concerned that French banks are among the most exposed to a worsening of Europe's government debt crisis.
"The pressure was there before the US downgrade. France is the euro zone's second leg. if it stumbles the bloc will really start to limp," said Natixis economist Jean-Christophe Caffet.
Sarkozy was at the centre of a July 21 agreement among euro zone leaders to give the EFSF rescue fund the power to buy sovereign bonds on the secondary market and aid Greece with a new multi-billion euro bailout.
With the opposition Socialist Party on board, parliament should pass the resulting adjustments to the 2011 budget at special sessions on September 6 and 7 -- tacking an extra 15 billion euros onto France's public debt by 2014, equivalent to adding 0.75%age points to the debt-to-GDP ratio.
Left-wing lawmakers, however, have vowed to block Sarkozy's proposal for a constitutional "debt brake" if it goes to a two-chamber vote in coming weeks, part of the jockeying for political position ahead of a 2012 presidential election.
The Socialists oppose tampering with the constitution, noting the reform would have limited impact as numerical deficit ceilings would be set by particular governments anyway.
Markets, however, see the constitutional move as symbolic of France's commitment to fiscal prudence and some analysts fear that rating agencies could use a failure of the initiative to put France on negative outlook.
Prominent French economist Jacques Attali noted S&P's report picked out France as the only Triple-A country facing a similar debt ratio in 2015. "We are being explicitly picked out. We must therefore do everything to reduce our debt," he told Le Monde.
France has not produced a balanced budget since 1974 but, like others, is struggling with low growth -- figures on Friday are expected to the economy expanded just 0.2% in the second quarter.
Government officials have already said they will try to squeeze at least 3 billion euros in extra revenues from the 2012 budget, to be debated from September. The Senate finance committee is eyeing between 5 and 10 billion.
With an election just eight months away Sarkozy will steer clear of broad tax hikes, but a group of advisors have suggested slapping new taxes on the super-rich or nudging up value-added taxes from the current rate of 19.6%.
To avoid touching the overall rate, the group suggests raising the reduced VAT rate of 5.5%, applied to restaurants and labour-intensive services like home repairs, to 8% and also setting higher rates for some luxury goods.
