PARIS, 17 (Xinhua) -- After months of gloomy statistics, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has seized on the opportunity offered by the latest economic figures to highlight the success of his policies and launch a brazen attack against critics and pessimists, the French media reported Saturday .Accompanied by Economy and Finance Minister Christine Lagardeand Secretary of State for Employment Laurent Wauquiez, Sarkozy took advantage of a "familiarization" trip to drum up support for the merger of the National Agency for Employment and the National Unemployment Insurance Scheme at Seine-et-Marne, near Paris, to welcome this "strong economic performance."

    Addressing reporters during the tour, an all-smile Sarkozy was measured and modest in his argument declaring: "This is only a first step, we must absolutely not be complacent, and we must persevere."

    "I'm not saying that this is sufficient, I'm not saying that is good, that we are to be satisfied, but finally it is the truth," said the president

    "Imagine if the figures were bad, they would have blamed me, they might have said that what was decided in the summer had served no purpose," according to Sarkozy

    "With 340,000 new jobs, the year 2007 was one of the five best years in terms of job creation since 1974... We have an unemployment rate that is capped at 7.5 percent, the lowest level for the last twenty-five years, and growth has eased to 2.2percent," said the president.

    "I'm telling this to all those who were saying that everything was screwed and that growth would be below 2 percent," said the president jokingly, before adding "I was elected on the platform of modernizing France."

    "2.2 percent does not impress me. There's nothing there to be complacent about. But finally, to all those who, through press articles and commentaries, explained that nothing was possible, I'm sending this figure," he said.

    "This growth is as a result of all measures that we have taken... the French economy, if released from its constraints, if we encouraged people to work rather than discourage them, would created jobs. This is a reality," said the president. In his presentation, President Sarkozy also took a swipe at "the consensus of economists, the so-called know-it-alls who had predicted subdued growth figures for the first quarter of 2008.""They said that it would be somewhere around 0.3 percent, well you go on dreaming... there's nothing more to see as the economy expanded at a pace of 0.64 percent," he said.

    Another target of his criticism was the European Commission, which is planning to issue a warning against France over the state of its public deficit. According to Brussels, France's situation is set to worsen in 2008 before falling back to the agreed European Union threshold of 3 percent of GDP in 2009."I am simply saying to Brussels to revise its figures. If INSEE(National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies) has revised its figures upwards, perhaps Brussels needs to also reexamine its figures," he said, adding: "But, I do not want to pick a fight over this."

    In a further move, the president who was also accompanied by Jean-Francois Cope, head of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement parliamentary group, launched a scathing attack on a section of the majority that he accused of being "less than open to reforms."

    "On the law touching on the modernization of the economy, I say, I will not give up," he said, in reference to lawmakers who have expressed worries over the repercussions of the law on small business.