Key View

• We at Fitch Solutions have slightly revised up our 2022 GDP growth forecast for France from 2.4% to 2.6%, largely reflecting strong momentum in the first half of the year. However, we have revised down growth in 2023 from 1.0% to -0.2% as both domestic and foreign headwinds mount.
• The government's tariff shield, which is designed to

Key View: We believe that Macron's re-election will boost EV manufacturing and sales in France. This is largely due to a policy that President Macron announced during his re-election campaign in March, under which a state-sponsored EV leasing programme for low-income households would be created and implemented in 2023.

The Latest: STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly build and operate a 300 millimetre (mm) semiconductor manufacturing facility in Crolles, France. The agreement is subject to the execution of definitive agreements as well as a series of regulatory approvals. The investment’s value has not

Key View

• French regulator ARCEP has recently released new data, which shows the total subscriptions for 5G stood at 2.9mn by the end of 2021.
• We have made moderate adjustments to our forecasts to reflect the new data, suggesting that uptake will be slower than previously estimated in the short to medium term.
• Whilst the mass-market is

Key View

• An expected victory for President Emmanuel Macron during the second round of the French presidential election would be positive for France's infrastructure industry, and would allow the incumbent to refocus his policy agenda toward greater incentivisation of green infrastructure and construction investment to support the market's

Key View

• Government proposals aim to boost pharmaceutical innovation in order to become the leading European nation by 2030.
• France’s industry association, LEEM, has also outlined a number of key recommendations to further support pharmaceutical innovation.
• Accordingly, pharmaceutical expenditure is set to rise in the coming the years

Key View

• We at Fitch Solutions maintain that French President Emmanuel Macron will be re-elected for a second term in April.
• The presidential race has however tightened, with Valérie Pécresse from Les Républicains, currently looking to displace Marine Le Pen in a second-round run-off against Macron.
• A Pécresse victory would strengthen social

Key View

• We forecast real household spending in France to grow by 3.2% in 2022, decelerating from the estimated grow of 5.1% in 2021. However, we note that the Covid-19 pandemic and the related restrictions on economic activity resulted in real household spending growth contracting by 7.6% in 2020, creating a low base for growth in 2021.
• We