France must speed up tax cuts, says Finance Minister Le Maire

PARIS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Monday said tax cuts should be accelerated, and by consequence the pace of public spending cuts quickened, to foster greater prosperity for all citizens.

"We cannot take away with one hand what we are giving to those who are working with our other hand, and therefore as a consequence we have to speed up our tax cut plans," Le Maire told reporters at a news conference.

"Less public spending and less taxes, those are the conditions needed to put France back on the right track, those are the conditions for the prosperity of all French people, those are the conditions to get us out of our debt burden," he added.

(Reporting by Myriam Rivet; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta/Richard Lough)