Paris
France’s economy slumped a record 13.8 percent in the second quarter as businesses bore the brunt of a strict coronavirus lockdown that slammed consumer spending, the INSEE statistics agency. The seasonally-adjusted drop in gross domestic product from the first quarter was not as steep as many analysts had expected, but worse than the performance of most of France’s eurozone peers. “GDP’s negative developments in first half of 2020 is linked to the shutdown of ‘non-essential’ activities in the context of the implementation of the lockdown between mid-March and the beginning of May,” the INSEE said in a statement. The agency also revised the figure for the first quarter — when lockdowns just started to be implemented to a 5.9percent contraction from the 5.3 percent it had previously estimated.
