France should stop blaming its economic difficulties on the euro’s high exchange rate and concentrate instead on controlling unit labour costs and raising productivity, according to the European Union’s top monetary official.

“There are good reasons to be concerned about the development of the euro’s exchange rate but it’s not possible to explain all the problems that have to be tackled by the eurozone in terms of the exchange rate,” said Joaquín Almunia, the EU’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner.