PARIS -- French Finance Minister Francis Mer has at last acknowledged that there is no chance the government will achieve its target of 2.5 percent growth in GDP this year. A steady increase in unemployment, a massive fall in stocks and plummeting car sales all indicate that France has not escaped the economic slowdown that has hit nearly all developed countries.

Taking into account the enormous financial burdens the state must shoulder in fields such as health care and retirement pensions, it will be extremely difficult for Paris to abide by the European Union rule limiting public debt to 3 percent of the budget.

It seems likely that the promise made last year by President Jacques Chirac to reduce income tax over a five-year period will be impossible to keep. If you add the fact that Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has just gotten the National Assembly -- where he enjoys a huge majority -- to pass an electoral reform designed to slash the representation of all parties except the Gaullists and the Socialists, and that signs of social unrest are multiplying, it will be no surprise if he starts losing ground in the polls.