French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici on Friday expressed hopes to report better-than-expected economic performance this year.

"I hope that the result in terms of growth will be higher than 0.1 percent," Moscovici said, pledging an "extremely serious" fresh growth forecast which are scheduled for the end of March.

"In the current context, it is essential that we let the automatic stabilizers to support the (economic) activities ... No question to give up structural effort in 2013," he stressed.

In 2012, France missed its 0.3-percent target and recorded zero growth. Looking for this year, the government wanted to expand the figure by 0.8 percent. However, persistent economic gloom in the eurozone shrouded into doubt the Socialists' recovery plans.

As to the budget deficit, the government will put the deficit target of 3 percent off until next year, according to Moscovici.

"To meet (this) target ... we have already decided a number of cost-saving measures. We are not preparing a supplementary budget and we will not add austerity to recession," he said after the European Commission issued its financial forecasts.

The Commission sees France's deficit gap to widen by 3.7 percent this year and said considering offering Europe's second economic power an extra time to respect EU deficit limits of 3 percent.

Economy of the eurozone will remain in recession this year with an expected contraction of 0.3 percent this year before gowing by 1.4 percent in 2014, the Commission's figures showed.