France trims June budget gap to €58.5bn

France reported lower budget deficit at 58.5 billion euros (63.73 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of June compared to 59.4 billion euros registered a year earlier thanks to falling public expenditure, government figures showed on Friday.

France's revenue grew by 0.6 percent to 152.4 billion euros while public spending stood at 193.8 billion euros, down from 194.4 billion euros, the budget ministry said in its monthly report.

Last April, France, under pressure to honor its fiscal commitment, announced an additional 4 billion euro cut in public spending this year and a cut of an extra 5 billion euros in 2016.

For 2015, the ruling Socialists have previously pledged to save 21 billion euros to trim budget gap to 3.8 percent from an initial target of 4.1 percent of France's GDP.

They want to save 50 billion euros by 2017 by squeezing spending of local authorities and reduce public spending of social security. (1 euro = 1.089 U.S. dollars)