After the growth of 2.6 % recorded in 2022, INSEE provides for low but positive growth in the first half of 2023 and a progressive decline in inflation around 5 %.
By Béatrice Madeline
The risk of recession, so much feared for 2023 given the energy crisis and the screw of central banks, seems to be moving away. In its latest cyclical forecasts published Tuesday, January 7, INSEE delivers a mixed but positive bulletin for the first half. After the end of 2022 on the razor thread (+ 0.1 % in the last quarter), growth should maintain 0.2 % in the first two quarters. Thus, in mid-2023, the growth achievement would be 0.6 % (which would be growth over the year if it was zero in the second half), a little better than the 0.4 % planned At the beginning of January.
Inflation seems to mark a tray: rather than reaching a peak of 7 %, which was envisaged at the end of 2022, it would settle during the first quarter in the 6 %zone, in the Assumption where the price of oil (barrel of Brent) would remain around 80 dollars (74.40 euros). Then, over the months, inflation will slowly slow down due to “the basic effect” (it will then be calculated on the 2022 prices which were already high). Thus, it would reach 5 % in the middle of the year. An online diagnosis with that of the Banque de France. “Inflation will most likely culminate, except new surprises, during the first half of this year,” said his governor, François Villeroy de Galhau, Tuesday, February 7.
This does not mean that the inflationary crisis is behind us. The stabilization of inflation “does not mean that the price level would drop, but that prices would increase less quickly,” said Julien Pouget, head of the Department of the economic situation at INSEE. And the slowdown will not affect all the product categories in the same way.
Energy will be impacted, but not food products, which will continue to flirt with two -digit increases, around 13 %. According to Mr. Villeroy de Galhau, we must not wait for the return of inflation at the level of 2 %, considered compatible with the stability of the prices, before “the end of 2024 or 2025”.
less supply problems
In terms of activity, several elements argue for a more optimistic scenario than that formulated in the fall of 2022. First, observes Mr. Pouget, “a certain resistance of the business climate”. Some industrial branches see the supply problems encountered from the COVVI-19 pandemic and are catching up with the level of production before the crisis. This is the case, for example, of the production of transport equipment – which mainly covers the automobile -, whose activity has grown in the fourth quarter of 10 % compared to the same period in 2021.
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