INSEE was wrong. Or didn’t see it coming. After the -0.2% of GDP recorded in the first quarter, the zero point confirmed for the second, places us in a situation of quasi-recession. Even if no one says it openly, forecasters prefer, against all likelihood, to count on the return of a trickle of growth by the end of the year to end at +0.4%. Very optimistic since the consequences of the scorching summer from which we are just emerging will weigh much more on growth in the quarters to come than it has done so far. And while nothing suggests a rapid end to the crisis in the Middle East.
Budget discussion
Meanwhile, inflation could reach 2.9% at the end of the year and the specter of stagflation with its attendant miseries – decline in purchasing power, savings and consumption at half mast, rise in unemployment, etc. – comes back to haunt trading rooms and ministerial offices. Which, already concerned by the increase in raw material costs, the decline in investments and the thinness of order books, see the lights turning red one after the other. Without even mentioning the European Central Bank’s rate hike…
These are the conditions in which the budgetary discussion which is opening will have to take place, even though the political climate remains all the more weighed down as the approach of the presidential election is already hysterizing the debate. Putting forward a forecast of measured growth, at +1%, for 2027, the government is perhaps already in excess. So what? This could, ultimately, change nothing at all: between the deficit reduction ultras and the proponents of “Tomorrow, we shave for free”, the main risk is not the lack of orthodoxy. It’s invisibility.
