After having plunged by 8% in 2020, unheard of since the Second World War, French growth has resumed just as spectacularly in 2021. According to the first estimates of INSEE, published this Friday, January 28, French GDP has increased by 7% over the past year.
If this figure is confirmed, it would also be the highest annual growth recorded for 52 years in France, and one of the largest in Europe.
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In its latest forecast dating from mid-December, the National Institute of Statistics anticipated growth of 6.7% in 2021, a figure similar to the forecast of the Banque de France, and which would confirm that the French economy has recovered. at the end of 2021 its level of activity before the epidemic.
For its part, the government had not formally revised its forecast of 6.25%, but the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, had admitted that this figure would be exceeded.
Heard by the Finance Committee of the National Assembly on Wednesday, he welcomed the trend: “
we are giving the French people a solid, attractive economy that creates jobs
”.
Degraded public finances
Many indicators are indeed green, starting with those of employment published on Wednesday.
The number of category A registrants at Pôle emploi fell by nearly half a million in 2021. Never has such a significant drop over one year in the number of job seekers been recorded since this DEFM statistic (job seekers at the end of the month) is distributed.
Either since… 1996.
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However, all of its good news comes at a cost.
In total, the State will have spent a little more than 60 billion euros last year, according to figures recently given by the Minister of Public Accounts Olivier Dussopt, at the cost of a public deficit which should be around 7% and a public debt of around 113%.