France

Economy : catastrophic figures!

- 4:41 pm
Consumers attentive to the quality and price of their food products - source: freepik

Consumers attentive to the quality and price of their food products - source: freepik

Where is the good economic health of France that we heard so much about during the election campaign? The INSEE figures on inflation and growth are very worrying.

Yesterday, the DARES (Direction de l’Animation de la Recherche, des Études et des Statistiques du Ministère du Travail) proudly announced that the unemployment rate had decreased by 15.7% in one year. That is 600,000 fewer unemployed people over one year and 164,700 fewer job seekers in the last quarter. France is recruiting,” say economists. Employers are looking for people, but they can’t find any.”

Inflation up, growth down

Today, there is a change of register. Inflation has reached 4.8% over 12 months, according to INSEE. Not seen since the 1980s. The price of energy is skyrocketing, and not only because of the war in Ukraine, the price of basic foodstuffs keeps rising: flour, oil, milk, butter, bread, pasta…
And it’s not over yet, because this time the Russian-Ukrainian war is starting to have worrying inflationary repercussions for household wallets.
As for the economic growth, it is… null, in the first quarter, still according to the INSEE. Economic activity is at half-mast, no doubt due to the decline in household consumption, which is traditionally the “engine” of growth. This explains this.
The threat of a cut-off of gas and oil by Russia would not help matters.
It is true that things are not much better elsewhere, notably in Germany, where inflation is 7.4%. A cut-off of Russian gas would have dramatic consequences for the European economy in general and for Germany in particular.

 

France,