WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (Reuters) – French Finance Minister Antoine Armand on Friday, following a Moody’s credit rating warning on his country’s debt, said that France’s top fiscal priority is to reduce its public deficit to a targeted 5% of GDP by 2025.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington, Armand said: “We noted the prospect of the negative outlook. We didn’t wait for the negative outlook to take the necessary measures” to control debt.
Armand said that France needed to foster growth as part of its drive to rebalance deficits and finance investments needed for the country’s clean energy transition.
“It is not just a financial target. It’s also a political target, because it’s the beginning of the public finance consolidation that we aim at in France,” he said.
But Armand said that France, the U.S. and other countries need to coordinate their policies opposing non-market trade policies such as those of China, adding that France shares U.S. concerns.
“At the very least, we need to coordinate answers against non-market practices, because if we don’t coordinate the answers to the non-market practices at the end of the day, it will create more disorder and more imbalances,” he said.
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Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Leslie Adler and Paul Simao
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