FRANCE – The €26bn Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites, the French Pensions Reserve Fund, is to grow to just over half its originally projected size, according to a report.

The Financial Times, citing FRR executive director Antoine de Salins, said the fund would grow to around €85bn by 2020 – missing its original target of €150bn.

The paper said state funding to the scheme has started to dry up.

De Salins was quoted saying: “The chairman of our supervisory board and his deputies have recently taken a strong and public position on this point.

“We will see if our efforts pay off. The public authorities are fully conscious of the need to give more clarity to the FRR’s funding.”

The FT said de Salins was very confident that future of the fund, set up by the socialist government of Lionel Jospin to cover shortfalls in France’s pay-as-you-go system, would be clarified when pension reform in debated in 2008.

Last month the fund issued a tender for its first ever private equity programme - €1.5bn in four lots, or just under 6% of its total portfolio. The deadline for responses is February 9.