PARIS: The IMF forecast on Tuesday that France, the eurozone's second-largest economy, will fall into recession this year with the economy contracting by 0.1 per cent.
In its latest revisions, the International Monetary Fund dropped its previous forecast of 0.3 per cent growth this year, but still expects the French economy to rebound by 0.9 per cent in 2014.
France's growth is forecast to be negative in 2013, reflecting a combination of fiscal consolidation, poor export performance, and low confidence," the IMF's chief economist Olivier Blanchard said in the foreward to its latest World Economic Outlook report.
The IMF's latest forecasts are more pessimistic than those the French government is to sign off on Wednesday as part of its plan to get its public deficit back under the EU limit of 3.0 per cent of output by 2014.
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