The French government is accelerating the rhythm in response to the commercial war. Before a public finance conference at the Prime Minister’s office, scheduled for April 15, Economy Minister Eric Lombard announced in a televised interview on TF1 on Wednesday, April 9, that the 2025 growth forecast of France had been reviewed downward, only a few hours after the New Tariffs entered into force and the last about Donald Trump on the subject. “Taking into account uncertainties,” the prognosis has been reduced from 0.9%, the figure of the 2025 budget, 0.7%. This scenario is aligned with the latest economic projections of the Central Bank of France, the Bank of France.
The review announced by Lombard did not go as far as the one that the prime minister recently hinted: François Bayrou estimated, in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien On April 5, that the commercial war would cost France 0.5 growth points. If this figure had echoed the bones by the Minister of Economy, the 2025 growth prediction would therefore be 0.4% today, not 0.7%.
Less pessimistic than the office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Economy also seems more optimistic than the French Economic Observatory (OFCE). In its forecasts published on April 9, the Observatory anticipated only a growth of 0.5% for the country in 2025, before returning to 1.1% in 2026. In its previous forecasts, which dates back to the fall, the often expected 0.8% Grott in 2025. Italy, which is much more vulnerable to the US measures that France, folded to half 2025 to 0.6% on Wednesday.
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