European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet said last night that France's public finances were in 'very great difficulty'.
He told Europe 1 radio that in 2007, France would be the country with the highest ratio of public spending to output in the whole of the EU.
'When you look at the figures it is worrying to see that the development of France's public finances has on average been significantly worse than that of other European countries,' said Trichet.
He said France had not been well managed 'for a long time' and had 'enormous progress to make'.
Trichet's comments came after French Prime Minister Francois Fillon had said on Friday that the French state was 'in a state of bankruptcy'.
Trichet also defended the ECB's actions during the turmoil caused worldwide by the default on sub-prime mortgages by US consumers - loans that had been repackaged and sold worldwide in complex financial instruments.
He said the ECB had 'taken the decisions that it had to' by pumping tens of billions of euro to facilitate inter-bank lending in global money markets.
