France has defended itself well from the crisis. The national institute of statistics (Insee) has confirmed that in the fourth quarter of 2011, the cyclical growth of the French GDP was 0,2%, as expected by the same entity, slightly down on the 0,3% of the previous quarter. In addition, Insee confirmed the preliminary data that estimates for all of 2011 an overall increase in GDP of 1,7%.
I household consumption slowed down to +0,2% after +0,3% in the previous quarter, while the investments increased significantly with a +1,1% against 0,2% in the previous three months. Above all, the investment of non-financial companies proved to be particularly dynamic with a +1,7%.
The trade balance was also good at the end of the year exports increased at the same rate as in the third quarter (+1,2%) and imports decreased by 1% after the +0,6% of the previous quarter.
Not bad too the individual purchasing power of the French, which slowed down at the end of 2011 but improved if one looks at the year as a whole. Throughout 2011 the purchasing power marked a +0,4% up on the +0,1% in 2010, but less than the expectations which estimated a +0,6%. In the last three months of last year, on the other hand, purchasing power decreased by 0,2%, a slight improvement compared to the -0,3% of the previous quarter.
