Francois Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Bank of France, said the European Central Bank is likely to start cutting interest rates at its June 6 meeting.

Villeroy told a conference in Paris that recent inflation data are encouraging and testify to the ECB's commitment to keep price growth down to 2% year-on-year by the end of next year.

"We are confident enough to start cutting rates soon," Villeroy said at the Institute of International Finance Summit."There is a high probability that we will cut rates by the next meeting on June 6."

needforspeedcrashHis comments were consistent with the view of other ECB officials that policy should be relaxed at the next meeting.