People attend an evening vigil in Place de la Republique following the series of deadly attacks in Paris, November 15, 2015. (Reuters)
Fresh French spending on security in response to the Paris attacks will amount to "a few hundreds of millions of euros (dollars)", a lawmaker said in remarks published today.
Dominique Lefebvre, deputy and vice-president of parliament's finance commission, also told the L'Opinion business daily that France was still on target to meet its EU deficit targets if the new anti-terror spending was stripped out.
"There is a mediocre debate around the question whether the president (Francois Hollande) is going to use this opportunity to mask any failure to meet his targets. We will see that, outside this additional spending, we will meet our objectives," he said.
France had warned Tuesday it wouldn't meet its EU deficit obligations as it steps up spending on security in the wake of Friday's Paris attacks.
The new costs would cover staff and equipment, Lefebvre said.
"At 40,000 euros per job on average, 15,000 jobs amounts to about 600 million euros, no more," he said.
France, which hasn't been able to bring its public deficit back under the three-percent limit since the global financial crisis struck in 2008, had earlier agreed with the EU to reduce the deficit to 3.8 percent of GDP this year, 3.3 percent in 2016 and 2.7 percent in 2017.