The French economy, which is Europe’s third largest, will slip into its first recession in 16 years in the first quarter of 2009 according to the Bank of France this morning. French gross domestic product will shrink 0.6 percent in the three months through March, following a 1.1 percent contraction in the final quarter 2008. br /br /a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SZAgIaWnsNI/AAAAAAAAMmQ/dVPTEd4iRMc/s1600-h/france+GDP.png”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 229px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SZAgIaWnsNI/AAAAAAAAMmQ/dVPTEd4iRMc/s400/france+GDP.png” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300772090300313810″ //abr /br /br /Basically France has steered clear of “technical” recession to date due to very slight growth (0.1%) acheived in Q3 2008. That being said, it is also the case that the French economy is certainly the “eurozone big 4″ economy which is holding up best during the current crisis. Doubtless when all this is over we will spend a good deal of time talking about why this is.

Last 5 posts by Manuel Alvarez-Rivera

• Swept away: Japan's LDP suffers crushing parliamentary election defeat - September 2nd, 2009
• Another election, another government in Bulgaria - July 16th, 2009
• The European Parliament election of 2009: the "summer of discontent" poll? - June 7th, 2009
• India's 2009 general election delivers a surprise outcome - May 17th, 2009
• Topolánek's toppling leads to early Czech election - March 30th, 2009