The French economy grew by 1.4% in 2005, official data estimated today, confirming an earlier estimate but raising growth in the last quarter to 0.4% from 0.2%.
The overall growth performance in the last quarter had been handicapped by a poor performance in foreign trade, the data showed. The economy had grown by 2.1% in 2004 and by 0.9% in 2003, the INSEE statistics institute said.
Household consumption at the end of the year had been dynamic but the economy had suffered from a big trade deficit and from a slowing of business investment, INSEE said. In the fourth quarter, household consumption had risen at almost the same rate as in the third quarter, when it grew by 0.6%, contributing 0.3 percentage points of growth.
Investment by non-financial companies had slowed to grow by 1.2% after 1.5% in the third quarter. Household consumption had accelerated to grow by 0.6% after 0.4%. Overall investment had remained 'quite dynamic', growing by 1% after 1.1% in the third quarter. This had contributed 0.2 percentage points to growth.
But weakness on the foreign trade account had weakened output by 0.4 percentage points. Exports had risen by 1% in the fourth quarter after growth of 2.9% in the third quarter and imports had risen by 2.3% after 2.6% in the previous quarter.
Meanwhile, the French public deficit for 2005 fell to 2.9% of output, within euro zone limits, but the debt rose to 66.8% of gross domestic product from 64.4% in 2004, further figures from INSEE show today.
In 2004, the public deficit had been 3.7% of GDP, in breach of an upper target of 3% for EU and euro zone countries. The target ceiling for national debt is 60% of GDP.
The government, which has been strongly criticised by the European Commission for overspending, has made reduction of the deficit and debt a priority.
And French unemployment declined in February, in a boost for the centre-right government that is facing widespread protests over its new youth jobs law aimed at easing labour market problems.
The number of job-seekers dropped by 0.4% after a rise of 0.7% in January, which was the first increase since March 2005. The overall unemployment rate remained at 9.6%, according to figures released by the labour ministry today.
The number of people immediately seeking full-time work - the official barometer of unemployment - stood at 2,319,200 at the end of February, the ministry said.
