France

French President François Hollande said Tuesday the country's budget deficit will be well above what he pledged when he came to power 10 months ago, and Europe needs to change its dose of austerity to fuel an economic recovery, The Wall Street Journal reported. The 58-year-old socialist president came to power in May last year saying he would steer France on a path to growth while also bringing the budget deficit down to 3% of annual output in 2013 from 5.2% in 2011, as the previous government had promised to investors and European peers.

Shareholders of debt-laden French spirits group Belvedere approved the company's debt-restructuring plan after an unruly meeting lasting more than five hours on Thursday, giving it a chance to avoid an otherwise likely liquidation, Reuters reported. The plan, which must still be approved by a court at a hearing on March 11, was supported by more than 70 percent of shareholders, while investors rejected resolutions to dismiss the company's board added to the agenda at the last minute.

France's government supports an Egyptian takeover offer for the threatened Petit-Couronne oil refinery in Normandy, the industry minister said on Thursday, raising hopes the plant will outlive a mid-April deadline for closure, Reuters reported. The refinery owned by insolvent Swiss company Petroplus is due to shut on April 16 if administrators decide that five bids submitted so far, including the Egyptian one and others by Swiss, Libyan and French firms, do not constitute valid offers.

Already living in Germany's shadow, the French economy is increasingly losing ground to southern Europe and Spain in particular, despite efforts by President Francois Hollande to claw back France's competitive edge, Reuters reported in an analysis. Though Hollande has reforms in the works to trim France's high labour costs and introduce more flexibility into the jobs market, the moves stop far short of what Spain has done.

PSA Peugeot Citroen won staff agreement on Tuesday for an early wind-down of its doomed Aulnay plant, as rival French carmaker Renault pressed unions to sign a new national labor deal, Reuters reported. The moves by both French automakers, designed to address a crisis of overcapacity and falling sales, have divided unions and sparked protests and stoppages at sites around the country.

France has received five offers for the takeover of its troubled Petroplus refinery, two of them "serious," as a deadline passed on Tuesday for potential bidders to submit offers to legal administrators and avoid a liquidation the government hopes to avoid, Reuters reported. Late on Tuesday, French Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg described as "serious" the offers received by Switzerland's investor group Terrae and Egypt's energy company Arabiyya Lel Istithmaraat.

PSA Peugeot Citroen was ordered by a court to pause its restructuring plans as auto workers across France went on strike to protest industrywide job cuts amid signs the decline in European car demand is accelerating, Bloomberg reported. Workers burned tires and blocked access to some Renault SA factories and protested outside a Peugeot plant in a Paris suburb that is set to close. A court in the French capital said separately that Peugeot can’t eliminate jobs until a parts supplier that it controls tells workers how they may be affected by the automaker’s reorganization.

Video game company Atari SA said it filed for bankruptcy protection in Paris and New York on Monday after it failed to find a successor to main shareholder and sole lender BlueBay as it wrestles with tough market conditions, Reuters reported. The U.S. operations plan, in addition, to separate from their French parent to seek independent capital to grow in digital and mobile games, Atari Inc said in a statement. The U.S.

Books-to-music retailer Virgin Megastore France will formally declare itself insolvent on Wednesday, the latest casualty of an industry-wide slump in CD and DVD sales as consumers download more film and music online, Reuters reported. The filing, the first step towards a possible court-ordered company restructuring in France, coincides with the start of winter clearance sales in a morose economic climate. Shoppers are reining in spending in the euro zone's second-biggest economy where the total number of people out of work is at a 15-year high.

France’s socialist government has hinted that a replacement for its controversial 75 per cent income tax bracket, struck down late last month by the country’s constitutional council, may be at a lower rate but imposed for the rest of its five-year mandate, not just two years as previously proposed, the Financial Times reported. It is also to divert €2bn in extra funds into state-backed job creation schemes in a bid to meet President François Hollande’s bold promise to reverse a trend of fast-rising unemployment by the end of this year.