PARIS (Reuters) – France should speed up its gradual return to work and business activity, as the country emerges from lockdown measures imposed to tackle the coronavirus crisis, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday.
“I want economic activity to resume more quickly,” Le Maire told LCI television.
The French economy is expected to contract by 11% in 2020.
President Emmanuel Macron’s government put France under one of Europe’s most stringent lockdowns from mid-March, and only began lifting restrictions on May 11. Macron is due to address the nation in a televised speech on June 14.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Edmund Blair)
