Continued stagnation or a further slowdown in the French economy could weigh on a European recovery, which has been alarmingly slow after the Continent’s lengthy debt crisis. On Tuesday, Italy warned that its economy, the eurozone’s third largest, was heading into a third straight year of recession and would be unable to meet its deficit target before 2017.

Growth in the 18 countries that share the euro currency ground to a halt in the last quarter, and the region’s unemployment rate remained stuck at 11.5 percent. By contrast, the American economy appears to be recovering from one of its worst downturns since the 1930s, and unemployment has declined to around 6 percent from about 10 percent during the trough of the more recent financial crisis.

On Wednesday, Michel Sapin, the French finance minister, warned that the country would continue to experience slow growth for at least the next three years, with the economy expanding by just 0.4 percent this year before reaching a 2 percent pace only in 2019.

A few hours later, though, even that gloomy forecast was attacked by the French High Council of Public Finances as being too optimistic.

France is effectively arguing that circumstances justify flouting the eurozone budget rules that it, together with Germany, played a critical role in shaping during the creation of the currency union a decade and a half ago. France is demanding more leniency from Brussels to meet European Union deficit targets, having already missed two deadlines in the past three years.

“We have taken the decision to adapt the pace of deficit reduction to the economic situation of the country,” Mr. Sapin said Wednesday.

Image “We have taken the decision to adapt the pace of deficit reduction to the economic situation of the country,” said France's finance minister, Michel Sapin. Credit... Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

With growth weak across Europe, France is hardly alone: Last year, Ireland, Spain and Greece were among those countries that also failed to comply with the bloc’s requirement that budget deficits not exceed 3 percent of gross domestic product.