Hollande

 To keep his promise to balance the budget by 2017, Hollande wants to find 100 billion euros: half from new revenues and half from limiting growth in public spending to 1.1 percent per year - a small cut once inflation is taken into account. But his plans are based on optimistic growth assumptions of 1.7 percent of GDP next year, rising to an average 2.5 percent after 2013. France's trend growth rate for the last 20 years has been 1.6 percent, and economists expect that to dip to 0.9 percent this year.

"The Court is not going to find any big holes in government finances because national accounting in France is very serious, but the problem will be the growth: the forecasts are too optimistic," said the second advisor. Going on past form, the Court will recommend a mix of tax rises and spending cuts to plug the deficit. It has also said the social security system deficit was unprecedented in Europe and must be cut by trimming spending. Such considerations may influence an extraordinary session of parliament in July which Hollande is due to convene to pass a revised 2012 budget and a medium-term spending plan. The month-long session is scheduled to pass legislation ending several tax exemptions, imposing tax surcharges on banks and oil companies, approving a top tax rate of 75 percent for the wealthy and quashing a social VAT introduced by Sarkozy.