On Friday, French officials were summoned to Brussels to present a plan for bringing the enormous French public deficit into line with European Union (EU) rules for countries that share the single currency.

While it was clear Paris would not meet the Friday deadline for reducing its deficit to below three per cent of output as required by the Maastricht treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact, the consequences of that failure were not yet known.

France could be fined around three billion euros (3.46 billion dollars) for repeatedly exceeding the limit, having posted a deficit equivalent to 3.1 per cent of gross domestic product in 2002 and heading for one of roughly 4.0 per cent this year.

Germany and France will hold a joint economic and financial council in the western German town of Trier on Monday amid a gloomy economic climate caused in part by their respective public deficits that have provoked sharp criticism from EU partners.

Certain to be high on the agenda of the 33rd such council are the public deficits and the EU stability and growth pact.

In 2004, France will likely miss the target once more, with a forecast deficit of 3.6 per cent.

EU officials have had enough, saying they are ready to take additional steps against France, which already faces an excessive deficit procedure contained in the stability pact in the event of repeated violations.

The European Commission will take the matter up this week and recommend steps to be taken on October 15 or 21, a spokesman said Friday

"The (recommendation's) content is obvious for all who have followed the case," Gerassimos Thomas added.

Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser said he was "absolutely certain" the commission would recommend further action against France.

He told the Financial Times: "What France is doing is simply a provocation towards all the other euro-zone countries.

"I see no opportunity for a compromise."

In Lisbon Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said: "It is not the moment to play with the rules," he said. "If we have rules we must respect them and accept the consequences."

European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg told a German newspaper last week: "The heads of state and of government have sworn to abide by the pact. If a country repeatedly breaks it, you have to ask yourself what role that country can play in European policy in future."