Across the World: France

French recession

France will follow Germany, the United States and Japan into recession by early next year as rising unemployment and the fallout of the financial crisis prove too much for the eurozone's second largest economy, the national statistics agency predicted Friday.

In its twice-yearly economic outlook report, statistics agency Insee forecast the French economy will shrink by a worse-than-expected 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter, and by another 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

(China Daily 12/20/2008 page11)