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FRANCE ENTERED A recession in the first quarter this year with gross domestic product contracting 0.2 per cent, after shrinking the same amount in the last quarter of 2012, the official INSEE statistics office said Wednesday.
A recession corresponds to a drop in growth over two quarters.
The French finance ministry said that it still expected a tiny expansion of 0.1 per cent for 2013 however.
INSEE also revised lower the fall in purchasing power for French households in 2012 to 0.9 per cent instead of a 0.4 per cent fall forecast in March.
French growth has been sluggish, hit by record unemployment and falling household demand, the key driver of the economy.
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Noonan, Creighton, Van Rumpoy & Barosso et al are going to push for a federal union in the coming months. Brits won’t have it. Germans not to keen on it also. Fingers crossed they keep this car crash going and collapse the lot. The sooner the better.
The rot is now embedded. Growth of 0.1 % is not growth. The rot is spreading. The descent will gather momentum unless or until a new deal is worked out.
Consumers won’t spend.
The French are lucky in that their mortgage and personal debt is vastly less than Ireland’s but people are now getting ingrained in frugality and cutbacks.
John Brution recommend more austerity as the solution!
Unless the medicine is terrible, tastes awful and actually poisons you, it must be no good but if it kills you, it was powerful “medicine”.
Well thank god the French wealth tax seems to be working there
thats true about the wealth tax but only because the tax was set too high
It is the Euro malaise finally catching up on it. France’s economy has been seen its manufacturing base, a very vital component of its economy slowly die off since it joined the Euro.
Watch the decline spread in to Belgium and Austria as well.
Welcome to our world.
More results of the ideologically driven Austerity agenda in a deeply flawed common currency system that all but makes government counter cyclical policy illegal by design.
If the government don’t act counter cyclically to reverse the downturn & mass unemployment, then what sector will (or can) ?
I think the current trend on top of the last 5 years answers that question precisely – ‘none’.
All of which is disaster – if you are not one of the top few percent club in income & wealth that is.
This is exactly the same mistakes and flawed economics thinking from the mainstream that were made in the 1930s.
What an utter bunch of self serving a******s running all this.
the idea that Austerity will solve the problem has been disproven – in practise – ,and indeed the original work by the two ” economists ” was also just plain wrong
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/26/rogoff-reinhart-remorse-reconsider-austerity
France is in decline – and even Germany – the ringmaster of the Troika had more than likely to massage figures to show 0.1 % growth ..
If u take /rob money from your customers – they wont be buying much from– but maybe that does not bother the New World Order .
They just keep taking and giving to the Rich .
Will the people rise up and do something besides talk – heck no – . Tthere is light at the end of the tunnell- we are told at regular intervals – and people appear to actually believe that BS—
and yes it is a train .
One by one the countries go – even Israel now they demonstrate against Austerity .
Its the Domino effect – at last we see it in action – and it will go on and on .
Ah hahahaha “austerity”
France had no such thing.
Go on, continue to spend your way into oblivion.
@Micheal -
Ah hahahaha “austerity”.
”The French economy has fallen into recession for the third time in four years as it recorded a 0.2% contraction in the first quarter of 2013 due to widespread austerity measures in the country.”
Full article http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/467766/20130515/france-germany-economy-gdp-austerity.htm
sacre blah blah blah!
I like your other Avatar better. Muscles from heaven!
But wait wasn’t taxing the wealthy at 75% suppose to solve all their problems!!….don’t let Sinn Fein or Joe Higgins know, they won’t have anymore policies to propose!!
francoise Hollande is a clown and has shown himself to be fairly weak as a leader Merkal must be laughing at him
Buy some land and learn how to be self sufficient, the ship is sinking
The French economy has a currency that does not suit it. It has a SuperMark currency. Like Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece it faces long term decline as long as the Euro is its currency.
have your say