French consumer confidence declines

A fall in French consumer sentiment has been partly blamed by analysts on the protests raging over the government's proposed youth employment law. Insee, the national statistics bureau, said its gauge of consumer confidence fell from minus 24 in February to minus 26 in March.

Cold blamed for German jobless rise

Bitterly cold weather in March, which deterred construction groups from hiring workers, unexpectedly pushed up the number of Germans out of work this month. The Federal Labour Office said seasonally adjusted unemployment rose 30,000, nudging the unemployment rate up from 11.3 per cent in February to 11.4 per cent in March.

The resurgence of Germany and the emergence of China mirror, in part, the changes that have occurred in the global economy during the past 10 years. In a detailed study, the French research institute Ifri notes how some parts of the new economy, which drove world exports in the 1990s, have since been growing more slowly than total world trade, while old-economy sectors such as equipment and chemicals have been particularly dynamic.

Yet beyond the cyclical behaviour of certain industries, Ifri attributes the reversal in favour of old-economy sectors not only to the collapse of the internet bubble but, more significantly, to the rapid integration of certain emerging countries into world trade.

French propaganda, obviously.

(Posted by Fran in the European Breakfast).