France to revise down 2013 growth target

The French government could revise down its growth target for the country's economy by some 0.5 to 0.6 percentage points, a government official said Tuesday. "As at the European scale, things seemed not good, we'll be forced to revise down the growth forecast to 0.2 percent or 0.3 percent," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told RTL radio. France has originally been targeting an economic growth of 0.8 percent in 2013. A day before, Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici also said that the eurozone's second largest economy was planning to lower its growth estimate for the whole year of 2013 in the coming weeks as there is still no light at the end of the tunnel of the economic gloom in Europe. For the full year of 2012, French economy reported zero growth, in comparison with an expected 0.3 percent, dealing a new blow to the initial optimistic targets for this year