"The euro has fallen. Beyond that, these are choices for the European Central Bank. Anything that helps competitiveness in this area is a step in the right direction," Valls said on a tour of an Airbus factory in Hamburg.

The euro traded just over 0.1 percent higher on the day on Monday at $1.2842 EUR= after touching a 14-month trough of $1.2826.

Valls said he has been calling for months "for the euro to be more and better adapted to economic reality" and hoped the currency would remain at its current levels.

The ECB's chief economist Peter Praet rebuffed criticism on Monday that the ECB was actively trying to depress the currency, telling a banking event in Berlin that the euro's current level reflected the economic situation in Europe.

French politicians over the years have regularly called for a weaker euro as they try to revive an often sluggish economy.

Underscoring the problems facing Paris, the government said last week it was breaking the latest in a long line of promises to cut its public deficit, conceding it would take until 2017 to bring its finances in line with EU rules, not next year as previously pledged.

(Reporting by Stephen Brown in Berlin and Jan Schwarz in Hamburg; Editing by Crispian Balmer)