Yes but no.
While optimism remains the order of the day, the French economy did not finally get back to the front in the first quarter of this year.
This Friday, INSEE sharply revised downwards its measurement of gross domestic product (GDP) to -0.1% between January and March, four times less than its previous assessment.
Because the recovery of activity and investment in the construction sector was lower than what the national statistics institute had assessed.
France still did better than its neighbors, Germany in the lead (-1.8).
This revised figure "does not change our ambition (...) to have 5% growth in 2021", immediately reacted the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire. For more than a year, each confinement and each gradual exit from it have shown that the French were there, too happy to feel a bit of life back. There was first the almost complete shutdown of the country, from March 17 to May 11, 2020. Then, past, the summer, a new turn of the screw in October, this time with schools open. , but an alternation, in the secondary as in the companies, of “face-to-face” and “distance”. A third confinement, finally, accompanied by the closure of schools and the reorganization of the holiday calendar, is implemented between April 3 and May 3, 2021. In the meantime, from December 15 to May 19,restaurants and cultural venues have been ordered to lower the flag; on them depends a significant level of employment and consumption… Consumption precisely, with GDP, unemployment, and household morale, have been severely battered by these successive trains of restriction. Decryption of a big macroeconomic yo-yo.
GDP in free fall
The student revolt of May 1968 and the financial crisis of 2008 will pass, in the history of the flagship indicator of economic activity, for small jolts in view of its fall during the pandemic.
France entered recession on April 8, 2020, less than three weeks after the start of the first confinement.
Since then, between confinements, relaxations, restrictions, and openings, economic indicators are yo-yo.
"The first confinement meant 20% less growth, that of March and April, it is rather 7 to 8% lost", explains to the Parisian the macro-economist Ludovic Subran, director of economic research of Allianz and chief economist of Euler Hermès.
“When we close local services, hotels and culture, we already lose two points of growth.
If you close the schools, the indirect impacts are much stronger, with an effect on the closure of public services, ”he explains.
Consumption, cloistered, delivered, etc.
The first confinement was terrible: between April 2020, the consumption of French households fell by 31.4%, unheard of for 40 years that this indicator was measured.
The tumble affected all sectors.
This is how we saw clothing collapse by 54%, and fuels remain in their barrels for lack of movement.
On the other hand, food consumption increased by 7.8%, boosted by the desire and the need to cook all meals at home.
"The first confinement took everyone by surprise, while the traders were honed for the 2nd and 3rd confinements, they immediately organized online sales", justifies Ludovic Subran.
In November, second confinement, curfew and traffic restrictions once again plunged French spending by 13.6%.
In April, further tightening of the screws, this time with the schools closed: current household expenditure fell 8.3% from the previous month.
Purchases of manufactured goods suffered much more (-18.9%) than spending on fuel (-0.6) and food (-0.2%).
“If we return to the level of confidence before the crisis, consumption can earn an additional point of GDP in France.
It can prevent a lot of bankruptcies, especially in local services and stores, and help to recreate jobs, more in the interim, services, ”says Subran.
The restrictions and hygiene practices adopted in the face of the virus have also had an impact on our ways of paying: in 2020, according to data from the Bank Card, cash withdrawals have fallen significantly while payment by card, thanks to the removal of the contactless limit, has been boosted.
Today, more than 60% of our everyday purchases are paid with a smart card (i.e. 12.8 billion transactions in 2020).
Unemployment: the rescue of partial unemployment
Before the crisis, employment recorded positive signs, January and February 2020 had been marked by a drop in job seekers registered with Pôle Emploi in category A. Patatras, in March 2020, there were 246,000 more unemployed people. a month.
Until then, this sad record month for unemployment was held by March 2009, with 77,000 more unemployed.
Anxious to avoid round-robin layoffs, and the loss of skills within companies, the government has announced the introduction of fully compensated partial unemployment. A pharaonic expenditure for the state budget, but an essential measure for the standard of living of households. Reserved, depending on the month, to 30,000 to 40,000 employees since 2015, 6.7 million people in March 2020 did not work but received their salary. 8.4 million in April, and again nearly 7 million in May when the gradual deconfinement was underway.
Since December, the number of compensated employees whose employment is suspended by the pandemic has fluctuated between 2.2 and 2.5 million, testifying to the wage bill employed in the hotel industry, restaurants and cultural venues, which have remained almost closed from October 30, 2020 to last week.
"This partial unemployment set up very early is a legacy of Germany which had set it up to face the financial crisis of 2008-2009", explains Ludovic Subran. "It made it possible to limit social damage, to avoid an unemployment rate that we cannot then reduce for years." The latest figure from INSEE for the fourth quarter of 2020 sets the unemployment rate at 8%. "It's a sham, however, warns the economist, because these figures do not take into account what is called the halo of unemployment, people who have stopped looking for a job or that the current demotivating situation, nor those who return to work with much less hours. The insurance sector also estimates that at the end of 2021, the unemployment rate should stand at 9.4%.
Household morale, an encephalogram never flat
During the first confinement, the strictest, the testimonies were so different ... On the one hand those who, unable to exercise their profession, cheerfully sorted their cupboards, played sports, paintings and small dishes, seemed to welcome this at best. unexpected break. On the other hand, parents drowned by telework, tried anyhow to educate their children without abandoning them too much in front of the screens. Between these two extremes sailed, without kicking, the workers on the front line, working in supermarkets, police stations and hospitals. Nevertheless, in April 2020, the household confidence index had experienced its most brutal drop since its invention in 1972, dropping from 103 to 95 points. Connected to the morale of the French, this indicator tells about their faith in the future,and they were disillusioned.
In May 2021, household confidence in the economic situation improved, stable at 97. Confidence in their personal financial situation increased by three points, and the proportion of households who consider that the standard of living in France will improve overall in the past. over the next twelve months increases markedly. Unemployment is less scary, inflation still a little. With good reason: this Friday, INSEE published a figure, still provisional, of 1.4% in May, compared to 1.2% in April. While food prices are falling, energy prices soared by 11.8% in May, proof that the French have started to consume fuel on a sustainable basis, and therefore to travel for their leisure.