PARIS, April 19 — The European Central Bank will take further action if necessary to keep prices stable in line with its mandate, ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau said in a newspaper interview published yesterday.

With inflation below its 2 per cent target, the ECB will have to keep interest rates "very low” and liquidity "very abundant,” Villeroy, who is also governor of the Bank of France, told French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche.

"And if we had to do more to fulfil the price stability mandate entrusted to us by the (EU) treaties, we will do more in all independence,” Villeroy said. — Reuters