France's central bank has predicted that the country is going to fall back into recession and France is now likely to enter the financial crisis centre stage, according to a newly-launched UK-based investment platform firm.

Brian Dennehy of the UK's Fundexpert said that debt growth in France is on a similar course to Greece, and that many investors are taking risks they are not aware of. With Spain in the spotlight and Italy not very far behind, "France is now the lion in the grass, very dangerous yet unseen by many," the firm said.

Fundexpert has identified £6 billion ($9.4 billion) in assets invested in UK funds overweighting France. “We recommend selling any fund overweighting France, and remain cautious of all European funds,” Dennehy said.

Similarly, Deutsche Bank named France as a country investors need to watch out for in investment report for August. It is currently placed next to Germany and Austria in the small group of countries which have returned to pre-crisis GDP levels, but it "may now find the going increasingly tough," Deutsche said. In fixed income, the bank recommended underweighting French sovereign bonds as well as financial debt because of the uncertain outlook for the country in the second half of the year.

The country's central bank said on Wednesday that France faces a shallow recession in the third quarter of the year.

The newly-elected French president Francois Hollande has both in his election campaign and since taking office fought to steer the European agenda away from austerity and towards growth - or at least a balance between austerity and growth. Since his victory in at the end of April, 10-year government bonds have fallen fairly steadily from 3 to 2 per cent - a sign of robust market confidence, which could be rocked by this latest central bank statement.