The French economy is deteriorating, so much so, that the French themselves admit that the growth of 0.2% between July-September 2002 is worse than expected, according to Nicolas Claquin, economist at CCF bank.
“We can expect [the weakness] to continue at least until the start of 2003, confirming our forecast of gross domestic product growth of 1.4% next year. The government’s growth target (2.5%) for 2003 is too high.”
So far not a surprise deserving a mention on this blog – it is the ability of the French to manage an arrogant spin of their worsening economic situation that is astounding:
“The figure confirms that France is not immune from the slowdown affecting our European partners and the United States.”
Perhaps Mr Cavalier, a Credit Lyonnais eurozone economist, failed to notice that despite the other countries’ economic problems the French economy is doing still worse than Germany and Italy in the last quarter and far worse than the UK and the US.
Jul-Sep 2002
UK +0.8%
Germany +0.3%
Italy +0.3%
France +0.2%
US +1.3
But, of course, let’s blame it all on the Americans.
At the risk of being redundant or in extremely bad taste, allow me to share a joke I heard in France from a fellow aerospace worker:
We French thought we had finally outdone you Americans with the Concorde. We showed the world that we could deliver the passengers straight from the plane to the hotel.
But no, you Americans could not leave well enough alone. You had to out do us by delivering the passengers directly from the plane to the office
At the risk of being redundant or in extremely bad taste, allow me to share a joke I heard in France from a fellow aerospace worker:
We French thought we had finally outdone you Americans with the Concorde. We showed the world that we could deliver the passengers straight from the plane to the hotel.
But no, you Americans could not leave well enough alone. You had to out do us by delivering the passengers directly from the plane to the office