Updated

France's economy stagnated in the second quarter, leaving President Francois Hollande increasingly desperate to fulfill his two-year-old pledge to get the country growing again.

National statistics agench INSEE reported Thursday that the eurozone's second-largest economy posted zero growth for the second straight quarter.

Finance Minister Michel Sapin immediately acknowledged that the goverment's forecast of 1 percent growth this year would now be impossible to reach. In an op-ed published on the website of French daily Le Monde, Sapin said: "This year GDP growth will be around 0.5 percent, and nothing currently allows us to expect growth much above 1 percent in 2015."