France's budget gap narrows on high revenue

France's budget deficit was 87 billion euros at the end of November 2013, down 16 billion euros year-on-year, the Budget Ministry said Friday. Public spending over the period inched up to 350.3 billion euros against 347.6 billion euros a year before, while the revenue stood at 265.2 billion euros, up 5.8 percent from the year before thanks to growing tax receipts which increased 16.3 billion euros, the official figures showed. Working hard to gain higher revenue to make its financial commitments, the government forecast the budget gap at 71.9 billion euros for the whole year of 2013, adjusting from an initial estimate of 62.3 billion euros. Following slower-than-expected economic activities, the budget deficit of Europe's second largest economy would stand at 4.1 percent of GDP in 2013, and 3.6 percent this year, both of which would be higher than previous forecasts of 3.7 percent and 2.9 percent respectively. (1 euro converts to 1.36 U.S. dollars at current price.)