Summary INSEE said earlier this month that it expected France's economy to contract by 0.2pc in final Q.
PARIS: French national statistics agency INSEE revised Friday its figure for the country s third quarter economic growth down from 0.2 percent to 0.1 percent, which will make the government s full-year target harder to reach.
INSEE said the third-quarter figure was revised following new data that showed weaker activity in the transport services sector and lower investment in and consumption of services in the three months from July through September.
INSEE said earlier this month that it expected France s economy, the second biggest in the eurozone, to contract by 0.2 percent in the final quarter of this year. It shrank by 0.1 percent on a quarterly basis in the three months from April through June.
President Francois Hollande s Socialist government, which is struggling to reboot a stagnant economy and straighten out France s public finances at the same time, has forecast overall economic growth of 0.3 percent in 2012, but that now looks difficult to attain.
On Thursday, labour ministry figures showed that French unemployment had risen by 0.9 percent on a monthly basis in November to 3.13 million people, closing in on the all-time record of 3.2 million set in January 1997.
A separate INSEE statement on Friday indicated that French household consumption jumped by 0.2 percent on a monthly basis in November owing to higher energy use, and revised a decline in October to -0.1 percent, a slight improvement from its initial estimate of -0.2 percent.
And "after stabilising in October, household energy consumption rebounded in November" by 2.7 percent, the institute explained. It pointed to temperatures that were slightly below normal in northern parts of the country.
Turning back to the growth outlook, INSEE said that if business activity was flat in the last three months of 2012, the country would show growth for the entire year of just 0.1 percent.
To reach the government s 0.3 percent target, economic activity would have to expand by 0.7 percent in the three months from October through December.
