FRANCE will lose its AAA credit rating early next year regardless of last-ditch efforts by President Nicolas Sarkozy to resolve the eurozone crisis at an EU summit this week, a Reuters poll of economists showed.

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his finance and budget ministers tofind new ways to prune the public deficit, as markets fretted over France’s strained finances and banks following a US debt downgrade.

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his finance and budget ministers tofind new ways to prune the public deficit, as markets fretted over France’s strained finances and banks following a US debt downgrade.