French officials said yesterday they had never wavered on EU-imposed budget targets, rejecting media reports they had tried earlier this month to lay the ground for renegotiation but had been slapped down by Brussels.

Conservative newspaper Le Figaro yesterday reported that the Socialist government had no choice but to retreat from plans to renegotiate how fast it should cut its budget deficit after Brussels ruled out giving additional time.

“At no moment did the President nor the Prime Minister or myself ask or plead for extra time,” Finance Minister Michel Sapin said in response to a question in Parliament.

On his first day in the job after a Cabinet reshuffle earlier this month, Sapin said France wanted to revise the pace of its deficit reduction. His comments were widely interpreted as implying Paris wants a further extension, beyond an extra two years already granted to the end of 2015, to bring its deficit in line with an EU limit of three per cent of national output.

His remarks chimed with comments from President François Hollande who had said his government would have to convince its EU partners its reform efforts should be taken into account when judging Paris’s respect for EU promises.