PARIS, March 3 (Reuters) - France's budget deficit will be slightly more than 5 percent of gross domestic product in 2009 with an eventual return to a balanced budget postponed until after 2012, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday.
Fillon told Europe 1 radio that the government had cut its forecasts for this year and was predicting the economy would contract by between 1.0 and 1.5 percent. The previous forecast was of growth of between 0.2 and 0.5 percent. (Reporting by Crispian Balmer, editing by Marcel Michelson)