The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday asked Europe's second largest economy to ease its pace of budgetary adjustment in 2014 in a bid to support a fragile growth recovery.

In its regular review on France's economy, the IMF hailed France's "significant progress already achieved towards consolidating public finances," but recommended "a smoother pace of adjustment than envisaged in the Stability Program to support the hesitant recovery."

"With tax rates already at a very high level, (IMF) stressed that rebalancing fiscal adjustment toward expenditure containment is critical, including in the areas of social security and local spending where there is room for improved efficiency," it added.

With a deficit gap set at 3.7 percent of economic output this year, down from 4.8 percent in 2012, the French government eyes to rebalance the ailing public finances by 2017 via a 60-billion-euro spending cut of ministerial budgets, state aid to companies and reducing local government funding.

Despite signs of gradual French growth recovery in the second half of 2013, the IMF maintained its forecast of a 0.2-percent contraction of the country's economy in 2013. It expected the figure to rise to 0.8 percent a year after.

As to unemployment, the IMF pointed to a continued increase in the number of jobseekers in one of the eurozone' main powerhouses over the next two years to 11.2 percent this year and 11.6 percent in 2014, up from 10.2 percent reported in 2012.

With a limp economy and an ever increasing jobless rate, the ruling Socialists have stressed to make progress on the wane economy and reversing the rampant jobless rate by year end by improving competitiveness, spurring investment in promising activities of information technology and encouraging training of poorly skilled jobless youth to facilitate their recruitment.