France narrowly avoided dropping into recession in the third quarter, official figures showed today.
The French economy, Europe's second-largest, has not recorded growth since the third quarter of last year.
It 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% 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% contraction. It had previously said growth was stagnant, as it had been for the previous two quarters.
Fixing France's economy amid a European-wide crisis is President Francois Hollande's biggest challenge. He has promised to rein in massive government spending and reduce the deficit, largely by raising taxes.
But those measures have weighed on growth, and the country has watched unemployment tick steadily up as a raft of companies announced layoffs in recent months. The jobless rate now stands at 10.8%, according to European statistics.
Hollande has promised to restore the country's competitiveness by offering a tax break to companies that kicks in next year, but many are still waiting to see how he will reform the country's stringent labor rules. Those rules make firing difficult and thus make employers reluctant to hire, even once the economy starts growing.
Meanwhile, Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said today that the euro zone economy contracted by 0.1 % in the three months from July to September from the quarter before. This means that the euro zone had slipped back into a recession.
