The government deficit in France in 2011 was lower than expected, which will facilitate the task of the next president if the economy does not collapse.
After 5.2% of GDP last year, instead of 5.7% expected in the Finance Act, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, favorite polls, have pledged to re reduce the public deficit to 4.5% and 3.0% end of 2012, limit the European stability pact in late 2013.
The effort would be lower than expected.
The outgoing president praised the figure of Friday.
"France has done much better thanks to the efforts of the French," he said, renewing his promise to reach 3% in late 2013.
But the trend was poor in January and a sharp economic slowdown is expected for all of 2012, likely to derail the accounts if it were larger.
The "good" figure of 2011 on Friday will also be confirmed by further appreciation expected on May 15
The government balance includes accounts of the state, local and social security funds. It has not been positive since 1974.
Nicolas Sarkozy promised to return to balance end of 2016 and his Socialist opponent François Hollande end of 2017.
DOUBTS IMPORTANT FOR 2012
In January, the government deficit, which is the largest component of public deficit fell by less than a billion euros over January 2010.
A negative signal, even if the accounting parameters are not identical, to the rise or fall, a positive impact of € 2.6 billion having been such registered in January through the sale of radio frequencies.
The government deficit in February will be released April 6.
Especially, strong economic growth this year, which largely determine the amount of revenue is uncertain.
The government has just raised its growth forecast for 2012 to 0.7% against 0.5% earlier (after 1.7% in 2010), while Francois Hollande provides 0.5% .
International institutions and economists are less optimistic, the IMF providing 0.2%, 0.3% OECD and the European Commission 0.4%.
The evolution of public finances is crucial for France, already deprived of its precious AAA by Standard and Poor's and sees its sovereign rating placed on "negative outlook" by the three major rating agencies.
Borrowing costs on financial markets may increase, which would make the effort to restore data even more important.
The yield differential ("spread") between the French public debt to 10 years and German debt is currently above 110 basis points, or 1.1%.
This level is much lower than that achieved in November, at the height of tensions on the debt in the eurozone, to nearly 200 points, but it is much higher than the observed 30 to 40 points s during "normal".