PARIS -- Already put on hot seat on economic troubles, French President Francois Hollande came under more pressure after fresh data showed the Europe's key powerhouse sliding into recession, threatening projects to revamp the wane domestic growth and drag the eurozone out from the crisis.

On Wednesday, the National Statistics Institute, INSEE announced that France's economy reported 0.2-percent contraction over the first three months of the year for the second consecutive quarter.

The INSEE attributed the weak growth to stalled industrial output, a sluggish household consumption, a drop in investment for the fifth consecutive quarter and a further decline in exports.

Following the grim data, the Socialists' prospects to create more wealth and trim jobless look dim and prompted fresh deluge of criticism over their policy, widely considered ineffective to fix economic troubles.

"... There are structural causes of France's competitiveness deficit and the measures taken by Hollande in one year make me believe that the president has his personal responsibility in the worsening the economic situation of our country," Jean-Francois Cope, the head of the main opposition party UMP said.

"The socialist government's policy is a real failure that leads our country to a wrong way and going to affect our its future," Cope added in a statement posted on the party's website.

Taking power a year ago, the socialist France's top official pledged to combat excessive austerity and improve the management of public finances.

He unveiled additional billions of euros in new taxes on large companies and wealthy households, to expand growth by 0.1 percent and reach a deficit target of 3.7 percent of GDP this year.

However, in the view of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the picture of the French economy is not rosy after its recent report, pointed to a 0.1-percent contraction in 2013 before a 0.9-percent recovery in 2014.

Furthermore, analysts said Hollande's optimistic target could force the government, already under fire, to squeeze further public spending in a context of public discontent.

"This is the result of bad economic policy of Hollande. Today, we are plunging into recession due to an over tax rate which killed the purchasing power, the consumption and the investment," Valerie Pecresse, former Budget Minister told BFMTV news channel.

To the former prime minister Francois Fillon, the negative data that pointed to persistent fragility of the eurozone's second largest economy mirrored a "French problem."

"We have engaged with (former president) Nicolas Sarkozy an effort to improve the competitiveness ... The government of Francois Hollande has stopped all these reforms ... and replaced them with no real initiative in terms of competitiveness, so France entered into recession," Fillon was quoted as saying by local media.

Acknowledging "a serious economic situation," Hollande saw a zero-growth for the whole year of 2013 pledging more efforts to reach recovery.

"...What we have to do, it is not only comment on what has happened for too long but to ensure that growth returns...," he said during a cabinet meeting.