EU criticises France over its debt spending

Jordan Bardella, president of France’s far-right National Front party, talks to reporters. Pic/AP

The European Union's executive arm has criticised France for running up excessive debt, a stinging rebuke that comes as where President Emmanuel Macron facing a strong political challenges.

France was one of seven nations instructed by the EU Commission to start an "excessive deficit procedure", the first step in a long process before any member state can be hemmed in and moved to take corrective action.

For decades, the EU has set out targets for member states to keep their annual deficit within 3 per cent of GDP and keep overall debt within 60 per cent of output. During that time, such targets have been disregarded when it was convenient, sometimes even by Germany and France, the biggest EU economies. France's annual deficit stood over 5 per cent last year.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever