Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has held talks with his French counterpart Michel Sapin, as the new government in Athens begins efforts to renegotiate Greece's huge debt.

From Paris, Mr Varoufakis will travel to London and Rome for more talks.

At a press conference after today's talk, Reuters reports that Mr Varoufakis said "For the last five years, Greece has been living for the next loan tranche... We have resembled drug addicts craving the next dose. What this government is all about is ending the addiction."

Mr Sapin has ruled out a full debt cancellation for Greece, but has said they will consider other options to assist the country with the repayments.

Yesterday, the new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he was confident Greece could reach a deal with creditors - his left-wing Syriza party won last Sunday's election with a pledge to have half the debt written off.

However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ruled out debt cancellation, saying creditors had already made concessions.

"There has already been voluntary debt forgiveness by private creditors, banks have already slashed billions from Greece's debt," Mrs Merkel said on Saturday.

"I do not envisage fresh debt cancellation."

Greece's newly elected anti-austerity government said it will not co-operate with its international "troika" of creditors - the EU, ECB and the International Monetary Fund.

Mr Varoufakis said that despite warnings his country would shortly run out of money, his government preferred to do without fresh funds and instead renegotiate its entire €240bn bailout package.

Athens has been promised another €7.2bn in funds from the troika if it completes reforms required by its lenders by 28 February, when the bailout programme runs out.

"We don't want the €7bn ... We want to sit down and rethink the whole programme," the new finance minister warned.

Mr Varoufakis spoke to Newstalk Breakfast earlier this week. You can listen back to the clip below: