France’s stat operation INSEE reported that French consumer confidence cratered in June. The region’s second largest economy may not be in as much trouble as Italy or Spain, but its citizens believe otherwise, at least if the June data is taken at face value. And, if consumer confidence is any signal of future economic activity, France is in deepening trouble.
According to the agency:
In June 2013, households’ confidence about the economic situation slightly declined. The synthetic confidence index lost 1 point with respect to May, falling to a new lowest level.
That dropped the figure to 78 compared to 83 in March and June, and 79 last month.
The future will be tougher, based on the assessment of the country’s citizens:
In June, households’ opinion about the expected general economic situation in France slipped. The corresponding balance kept decreasing, as it had been doing since January (–2 points with respect to May), and reached a new historically lowest level. Furthermore, their opinion about past general economic situation decreased again (–2 points), thus reaching its lowest historical value of October 2008.
And:
In June, households were more numerous to forecast an increase in unemployment: the corresponding balance increased by 2 points with respect to May and reached its highest level since June 2009.
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