The systematic criticism of French successes is unjustified and must be denounced. But this should not prevent us from making a judgement on the current situation, on the mistakes made so far and the risks they represent. The publication of the first estimate of growth in the 1st quarter provides an opportunity to do so. With an increase of 0.1% after a drop of the same amount in the previous quarter, the French economy has been stagnating for six months, but this analysis is misleading.

This modest increase in GDP comes from an increase in inventories held by companies ...

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INSEE has given its first estimate of inflation for the month of February. Over one year, prices increased by 0.8% and by 0.9% in harmonized European data. We have to go back to 2019 to find such a low level. The continued rise in the prices of services (+2.1%) was offset by the stability of the prices of food products (except fresh products with +1.8%), manufactured products and the fall in energy prices (-5.7%). The industrial and agricultural sectors seem to have priced in the consequences on their production costs of supply chain disruptions caused ...

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EDF, the French electricity utility, is connecting this week the Flamanville EPR nuclear reactor to the grid. That good news, yet, is accompanied by the usual negative comments regarding the exceptional length of the works (a 12 years delay) and the construction huge cost overruns (10 billion). If these points are undisputable, they must not mask another very positive reality for France which so has reestablished its capacity to build nuclear power plants. This one had been seriously affected by several major strategic mistakes.

There was first the refusal, at the end of the Nineties, by the successive governments to ...

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