French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has blasted eurozone policies for failing to deliver growth and warns that the European Central Bank seems "powerless" to ward off deflation.
Valls, struggling to push through reforms of the lagging French economy, also said his government couldn't boost any further proposed tax breaks for businesses in return for jobs.
Eurozone policies had not delivered economic rewards and there was a real risk of deflation in the face of lower-than-expected growth and low inflation, Valls told a seminar at the Elysee presidential palace on Friday.
"The economic policies of the eurozone are not effective," Valls said, adding that they "sadly take a long time to have an effect".
There was a real risk of deflation, Valls said "because at the European level, growth and inflation are lower than what we might have expected".
His comments came ahead of a meeting of the European Central Bank on Thursday, when analysts expect the bank to keep its policies steady while monitoring the course of growth and inflation.
Key indicators for the French economy - the second-biggest in the zone - suggest that it is lagging behind the recovery of other leading economies in the European Union, and notably the powerhouse Germany.
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