10bn euros needed to cut deficit

Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici Paris - AFP France must find up to 10 billion euros to bring its public deficit back to 4.5 percent of gross domestic product, Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Monday. Moscovici told iTele television that the new French socialist-led government was looking for seven to 10 billion euros ($12.5 billion), and added: "We are somewhere in the middle I imagine, but I am waiting to see the official figures". The French minister also said that a European Union summit to take place this week in Brussels had to see eurozone countries propose "structural solutions" to a crisis that is now in its third year. Moscovici insisted this meeting of EU leaders "is not a banal summit". Markets and other countries around the world "expect Europeans to finally come up with structural solutions, and that is what they are looking for". Moscovici said the EU meeting on Thursday should "finally provide the euro with a political spine, and banking regulation".