French 2015 growth may top 1%, not strong enough: Hollande

[PARIS] French economic growth is recovering and may top the 1.0 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) rise officially forecast for 2015 but is not sufficiently strong to tackle the country's high unemployment rate, President Francois Hollande said on Monday.

Speaking at a broad-ranging news conference, Mr Hollande stood by targets for deficit reduction and said plans for more than 2 billion euros (US$2.23 billion) of tax cuts in the 2016 budget would be funded by savings elsewhere in the budget bill due to be unveiled in the coming weeks.

"Growth is coming back, not sufficiently so," he said. "We will most probably have more than 1 per cent" growth in GDP this year, he said.

REUTERS