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Saturday, 04 October 2008 |
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Ministers and deputies on the government side are reluctant to use the word but France has officially entered an economic recession.
The accepted definition amongst economists is two quarters of negative growth. At the final day of the majority UMP annual get-together, the Minister for the Budget Eric Woerth said “We have had two quarters of negative growth, that is called a technical recession. We have had 1% growth in 2008. That is certainly not very much at all, it is actually very, very little, but it is still growth.” He ridiculed the press obsession with persuading members of the government to use the word. He said that “what is important is what we do. We cannot be satisfied with 1% growth”. The government has nevertheless said that it still aims to bring the budget into balance by 2012 despite the prospect of rising unemployment and a record trade deficit of €50 billion expected this year. Despite official reluctance to confirm that France is in recession, the Prime Minister has been quite willing to dramatise the credit crisis, talking of France being on “the edge of the abyss”.
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