Paris - The entire year of 2009 will be an economic crisis, with no date in sight for a recovery, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday.

"Today, no one can know when we will emerge from this crisis. What is known is that the entire year 2009 will be a year of crisis," Fillon told Europe 1 radio.

The French premier also admitted that the government's stimulus package would not prevent the crisis from taking hold in France.

"No stimulus plan could prevent the crisis. There is no magic wand," Fillon said.

Fillon's statement appears to be part of a new government policy of frankness regarding the effects of the global economic crisis on the French economy.

On Monday Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said that France will slide into recession in the first quarter of this year and that French gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by 1.5 per cent in 2009.

In addition, Lagarde said that the crisis would lead to the loss of 300,000 French jobs this year.

Previously, Lagarde and other government officials had sought to minimize the consequences of the crisis in France. This provoked comparisons in the media with statements made after the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, when a French government official maintained that the radioactive cloud had stopped at the French border.

However, the latest economic data forced the government's hand. In the fourth quarter of 2008, French GDP fell by 1.2 per cent, and the French economy lost more than
90,000 jobs in January of this year. (dpa)