France to reduce tax breaks further

(PARIS) - France will need to eliminate more tax breaks than originally planned in order to meet deficit reduction targets, the finance minister said on Friday.

"It's very likely that we'll have to go beyond the originally planned three billion euros ($4.24 billion) in tax niche reductions," Francois Baroin told to Figaro Magazine in an interview to appear at the weekend.

He said it was too early to say how many more tax breaks would need to be axed but that current budgetary targets were fixed and "were the backbone" of France's financing.

The government intends to reduce its public deficit from 7.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product at the end of 2010 to 5.7 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012 and then 3.0 percent -- the EU ceiling -- by 2013.