France emerged from three years of stagnation in 2015, helped by cheap energy prices and low interest rates, but the growth was still not enough to curb rising unemployment, reports the Financial Times.
The eurozone’s second-largest economy grew by 1.1 per cent last year, according to Insee, the national statistical institute. This compares with 0.2 per cent growth in 2014 and was in line with economists expectations.
“The recovery still faces many headwinds,” Diego Iscaro, economist at IHS Economics, said. “Growth will not be strong enough to make a significant dent in France’s elevated unemployment rate despite the measures implemented by the government earlier this year.”
However, growth slowed to 0.2 per cent in the final three months of the year, after picking up by 0.3 per cent in the previous quarter, as consumers held back on spending following the terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris in November.
While production of manufactured goods gathered pace in the fourth quarter, household consumption contracted by 0.4 per cent after growing 0.4 in the previous quarter, according to Insee.