French first-quarter consumer recovery keeps domestic economy steady

For the first three months of 2019, the French economy demonstrated a steady tempo of surge due to the fact that household spending revived following anti-government protests at the end of last year, as official data revealed on Tuesday.

In the January-March period, the euro zone's number two economy rallied by 0.3%, thus demonstrating the third winning consecutive quarter.

The preliminary GDP outcome turned out to be in line with the average expectation in a Reuters interview of 27 financial analysts and was a bit less than the 0.4% reported in the broader euro zone.

Some financial analysts were quite disappointed that consumer spending hadn’t bounced off more strongly considering government promises to trim taxes and spur pensions responding to the outrageous "yellow vest" street riots over the high cost of living.

In December, the French cabinet outlined a 10 billion euro package aimed at spurring the incomes of the poorest employees as well as pensioners.

The previous week, President Emmanuel Macron came up with a promise to have income tax cut by 5 billion euros, following five months of weekly protests.

Household spending, which appears to be the traditional motor of French economic surge, managed to ascend by 0.4% in the first quarter having stalled for the final three months of the previous year when spending was affected by some of the angriest street protests observed in decades.

INSEE informed that the improvement was observed in services, with spending in restaurants and hotels reviving after a dive in tourist numbers in December because of the riots.

Besides this, business investment rallied marginally, soaring by 0.5% after 0.4% in the fourth quarter.

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