France narrowly avoided dropping into recession in the third quarter, official figures showed Thursday, reports The Washington Post.
The French economy, Europe’s second-largest, hasn’t recorded growth since the third quarter of last year and had been widely expected to start its slide into recession in the third quarter — technically defined as two consecutive quarters of falling output.
Instead, Insee, the national statistics agency, said GDP rose 0.2 percent in the July to September period from the previous quarter.
If the quarterly rate had been negative, then France would be in recession as the agency revised down figures for the second quarter to show a 0.1 percent contraction. It had previously said growth was stagnant, as it had been for the previous two quarters.
Read more of this report from The Washington Post.