Latest budget blow comes as President Hollande attempts to reassure voters he can steer France out of economic rut

France failed to meet its budget deficit target in 2012 and will miss it again this year, as reports showed the country's public debt has risen to a record level.

The latest bad news came just hours after French president François Hollande went on live television to reassure the nation of his ability to lead it out of the economic mire.

Bringing France's public deficit down to levels in line with European requirements was a key pledge in Hollande's successful election campaign last year. Reports that he was failing to do so will further rankle the country's key European partners, notably Germany, with whom relations are already strained.

Figures released on Friday showed that two key economic indicators, the level of public deficit and of public debt, had overshot government targets.

The nominal deficit last year was 4.8% of gross domestic product. The target was 4.5%. Insee, France's national statistics agency, reported that public debt rose to €1.8tn (£1.5tn), a record 90.2% of GDP in 2012, up from 85.8% in 2011.

France's socialist government has admitted it will not be able to keep a pledge to lower the deficit to 3% by the end of 2013, as agreed with the European commission. The figure is expected to be about 3.7%, and France has asked for an extension to the deadline for reaching the target.

France has not balanced its books since 1974 under successive governments. Hollande had promised to cut public spending, currently at 56% of GDP, the second highest in the EU.

In Paris, the finance ministry blamed the recapitalisation of the failed French-Belgian bank Dexia along with lower than expected growth and higher EU contributions for its failure to rein in the deficit.

Pierre Moscovici, the finance minister, said the structural deficit had been reduced by 1.2% points of GDP in 2012, and argued it was on track to reduce the deficit level to 3%, but needed more time.

In a statement Moscovici and the budget minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the overshooting of the deficit forecast was "exceptional", and that if the Dexia rescue and the European budget were taken out of the equation, the deficit was at 4.7% in 2012.

Olli Rehn, the Europe's economic and monetary commissioner, has already suggested the EC might agree to delaying the deadline on the condition France reduces its public deficit to 3% by the end of 2014. However, the commission has warned France's deficit will reach 3.9% and the debt 95% of GDP by the end of 2014 if no new cost-cutting measures are implemented.

During his television address on Thursday evening, Hollande said his government had pledged to find €20bn in increased taxes and €10bn in public spending cuts this year and ruled out any more cuts or tax hikes. He warned that further austerity would lead to "an explosion" in Europe.

The president promised to address the thorny questions of reining in France's generous welfare benefits system and introduce pension reforms, issues that have brought demonstrators on to the streets in the past.