The Credit Crunch hits France  too!

The L'insee (French institute of statistics) has warned of a real and hard recession in France next year and a substantial rise in unemployment.  It warns that it is possible; France next year will be in recession for the first time since 1993.  With the international crisis, France is expected to suffer a general slow down of its economy.
Despite GDP growth of 1.9% in the last three months in 2008, L'insee believes Francewill collapse starting with a slow down of 0.4% in the first quarter in 2009.
The institute thinks the first effects of the government plan to rescue the French economy will have some effect in the second quarter of 2009 but the GDP will still slow by 0.1 % which means at least 9 months of recession.  The grow of the French economy is positive this year (+0.8% against 2,1% in 2007) The year 2009 is going to be  completely different...
For L'insee, the contraction of activity would be reach 1.1% end of June, so to only hope to reach a grow of 0 for the whole year, France would need to reach a grow of 1,4 % for each of the two first quarters of the year.  This doesn’t seem to be realistic.  On its side the French government is hoping for growth of between 0.2% and 0.5%, with the special rescue plan. The First minister, Francois Fillon, said on Thursday that no one in Europewill avoid the recession and a second rescue plan could be decided if necessary.  With this brake in French economy, it is a real fear for jobs in this country with – 71,000 jobs less increase 2009, could grow by 169,000 in the first quarter of 2009, at the end of June the job less rate for France could be 8% of the population the same as 2 years ago. Despite a slow down of inflation in France, the degradation of the job market and the worries to come will reduce consumption.
Another hard time for France!