The recovery in French growth should continue at the start of next year, forecasts INSEE in its latest economic report published on Wednesday, also forecasting a mechanical increase in the minimum wage "of around 0.9%" on January 1 .
French growth could be 0.4% in the first quarter and 0.5% in the second quarter of next year, estimates INSEE, in the wake of a GDP growth of 0.5% in the last quarter 2021. This current fourth quarter should allow French economic activity to completely erase the scars of the crisis, specifies INSEE in its note, and to display “0.4% above its level of 'pre-pandemic'.
After a collapse of 8% due to the economic consequences of Covid-19 last year, French GDP could thus grow by 6.7% over the whole of 2021 according to INSEE, a forecast identical to that published by the Banque de France in early December.
At the start of next year, consumption should "continue to catch up" in sectors below their pre-crisis level, details the Institute, while investment could increase moderately due to supply difficulties still strong.
The slight slowdown in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 comes “in a context made more uncertain by the resurgence of the epidemic in Europe, which is likely to weigh on the behavior of economic agents even in the absence of news restrictions ”, at a time when a fifth wave of Covid-19 is sweeping the continent and the Omicron variant raises fears of a sixth.
"The growth overhang", that is to say the annual growth that would be observed if the GDP were stable in the third and fourth quarters, would already be 3%, however specifies Insee.
Still high inflation
At the same time, the start of 2022 should be marked by still high inflation, "globally around 2.7%" over one year, continuing the movement that has been at work for months against a backdrop of sharp increases in prices. energy and stresses on global supply chains.
While the consumer price index for November is expected Wednesday morning and will serve as the basis for calculating the increase in the minimum wage, INSEE calculates that this increase in the minimum wage should be "of the order of 0.9% ".
However, this forecast does not take into account a possible additional boost from the government to preserve the purchasing power of households.
At the end of November, the Minister of Labor Élisabeth Borne had raised the possibility that this revaluation was higher than 0.6%, on the basis of the first estimates of price growth.
