President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Friday plans to abolish tax breaks worth 10 billion euros per year, as part of France's plans to reduce its large public deficit.

A statement issued after Sarkozy met his senior economic ministers said general taxation would not increase but that 10 billion euros (12.8 billion dollars) would be raised by abolishing various special tax regimes.

"Any resulting excess in revenues will be entirely assigned to reducing the deficit," it said, promising to continue with policies of only replacing one retiring civil servant in two and of freezing local government funding.

Sarkozy has vowed to maintain state spending at current levels, apart from interest payments and pensions, for the next three years as France battles to bring its ballooning deficit under control.