France faced renewed pressure today to convince rattled markets it can deliver on debt

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targets and keep its prized triple-A credit rating after data showed economic growth skidding to a halt.

The bleak news came after a dramatic week that saw French banks pummelled on stock exchanges as President Nicolas Sarkozy cut short a holiday to order deeper cuts and call a eurozone crisis summit with his German counterpart.

The government insisted that French economic fundamentals remained "solid" and that the country was still on course to reach its official target of 2.0 per cent growth for the year.

Sarkozy's promises to prune France's public deficit -- the shortfall between government spending and revenue -- are based on the 2.0 per cent forecast but the latest data support analysts' forecasts that the goal is too optimistic.

The zero growth in the second quarter of 2011 came after a robust 0.9 per cent in the first, the statistics agency INSEE said, noting that the main cause was a drop in household consumption.

The gloomy figures complicate Sarkozy's bid to slash France's deficit from 7.1 per cent of gross domestic product last year to 5.7 per cent this year, 4.6 per cent in 2012 and 3.0 per cent, the EU ceiling, by 2013.

"With the economy stagnating and (presidential) elections coming up next spring, it will be extremely difficult to implement the aggressive austerity measures that are needed to convince markets that the government finances are on a stable footing," said Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics.