MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Merkel praises France on reforms, but deferred to Brussels the controversial budget deficit issue

“Manuel Valls just presented his reform agenda and I think it is an impressive number of measures France is undertaking,”

Germany's Angela Merkel said on Monday after meeting French premier Manuel Valls that she was impressed by the number of reforms Paris had launched, but deferred to Brussels on the halting French efforts to reduce its public deficit.

“Manuel Valls just presented his reform agenda and I think it is an impressive number of measures France is undertaking,” the chancellor said. “I see the great efforts, and the evaluation of these will be up to the European Commission.”

“We wish them all the best implementing it,” said Merkel.

Valls, making his first visit as prime minister, said he had come to “convince” Germany that France was serious about reform, and added: “France is not the sick child of Europe.”

Ahead of Valls' two-day visit to Germany the country's biggest selling newspaper, Bild, referred to France as “Krankreich”, twisting the German word for France, “Frankreich,” to instead mean “sick country.”

Without identifying the paper Valls urged Germany to have greater confidence in France.

“France is not the sick child of Europe,” he told reporters. “Both the French and the German press need to move away from this caricature view.”

Valls acknowledged that his country has to catch up with the reforms Germany undertook at the start of the century, which many economists consider the basis for current German prosperity.

But he sought to reassure a skeptical German public that Paris is serious about doing what it takes to revive Europe's second-biggest economy.

“I understand the doubts, I understand the questions of the German people and its representatives. I also understand the concerns of the German press,” he said. “I want to tell the Germans, we will implement the reforms.”

Still, Valls made clear he wants Berlin to stop opposing public spending as a means to stimulate the economy. “The French will like Germany if it supports growth in Europe,” he said.