France's National Assembly approves 2014 budget

France's National Assembly on Thursday passed the government's 2014 budget draft which projected to lower the double digit budget gap by 0.5 percentage points via tough belt-tightening measures. In their second annual budget, the Socialists - already under fire on their failure to fix economic troubles - planned to save 15 billion euros (20.5 billion U.S. dollars) mainly by squeezing spending of local authorities and ministries, to reach a deficit of 3.6 percent, or 82.57 billion euros, of its national output. In 2014, the government said it targets to expand the country's economy by 0.9 percent on the back of an expected 0.1-percent rise this year, down from previous estimates of 2 percent and 0.8 percent respectively due to a persistent wane global economy. As the economy sputters along with an ever increasing jobless rate, French President Francois Hollande stressed to make progress on the ailing economy and reversing the growing slice of jobseekers by the end of 2013, by improving competitiveness, spurring investment in promising activities of information technology and encouraging training of poorly skilled jobless youth to facilitate their recruitment.