French economic growth stalls in first quarter, misses forecasts By Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) -France’s financial system progress unexpectedly floor to a halt within the first quarter as shopper spending dropped within the face of hovering vitality costs and battle in Ukraine, preliminary information from the INSEE official stats company confirmed on Friday.

Preliminary information confirmed no change in gross home product (GDP) for January-March, marking a pointy slowdown from the ultimate three months of 2021, when the euro zone’s second-biggest financial system expanded 0.8%, which was revised up from 0.7% beforehand.

Whereas a slowdown had been anticipated, the studying was worse than expectations for progress of 0.3% in a Reuters ballot of 24 economists, whose forecasts ranged from 0.6% to -0.1%.

Family spending, the normal driver of French progress, fell 1.3% within the quarter amid waning shopper confidence.

The federal government has put collectively a 25 billion euro ($26.3 billion) bundle of measures to assist shield shoppers’ dwindling buying energy and consisting largely of caps on gasoline and electrical energy value will increase.

However that didn’t cease the price of dwelling from being a significant theme in France’s presidential election this month, which incumbent Emmanuel Macron gained on Sunday by beating far proper chief Marine Le Pen.

Macron has indicated that his first steps after June legislative elections will embrace additional measures to assist shoppers comparable to subsidies for individuals on low incomes who’ve to make use of their automobiles and a rise in pensions.

INSEE’s GDP report mentioned that home demand subtracted 0.6 proportion factors from first-quarter progress, whereas enterprise stock rebuilding added 0.4 factors and international commerce added one other 0.1 factors.

($1 = 0.9491 euros)