INSEE confirmed that France has slipped into Recession

Preliminary data released from the INSEE (National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies) statistics agency on 14 May 2013 revealed the fact that the French economy has entered a shallow recession after shrinking by 0.2 percent in the first quarter of the year. The economy entered into recession because of weak exports, investment and household spending.

France is already suffering number of jobless people; the number of unemployed people in France went up to all time high in March 2013. The country's economy shrank by the same amount in the last quarter of 2012. France has record unemployment and low business and consumer confidence.

As per the INSEE statistics, investment in France contracted by 0.9 percent in the first quarter of the year. Similarly business investment went down by 0.8 percent and exports went down bu 0.5 percent in the second quarter. The household consumption also recorded a fall of 0.1 percent; this is the first downfall in household consumption since second quarter of 2012.

Recession is defined as regular contraction of GDP for consecutive two quarters. In case of France, the economy shrank by 0.2 percent in last quarter of 2012.

Earlier this month, the European Commission warned France would enter recession this year and said the eurozone would shrink by 0.4 percent. The European Commission has also offered French Economy a time limitation of two years to bring the public deficit of the nation in line with the European Union limit of 3percent of GDP.