France to have zero growth in Q2 says central bank

For those who who view matters on a practical basis, France has been in recession the entire year. For those who need to see two quarters of negative growth first, France slides back in recession. France is headed back into recession for the second time in just over three years, the country's central bank warned on Wednesday.

The Bank of France shaved its forecast for growth of the French economy in the second quarter of this year to 0.4 percent from 0.5 percent, on Thursday.The official statistics institute INSEE, which is to publish its data on output in the second quarter in the middle of August has forecast growth for the quarter of 0.5 percent.In the first quarter, French gross domestic product grew by 0.1 percent.Last year the economy shrank by 2.9 percent.

The French economy grew by 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2010, a slightly slower pace than previously forecast, the central bank said on Monday.The Bank of France had forecast first-quarter growth of 0.5 percent in its previous forecast in early February.The new figure is in line with a forecast by the INSEE statistics agency, which said in December it expected a "laborious and fragile" recovery with growth of 0.3 percent to 0.4 percent in the first two quarters of 2010.

We do believe the worst is behind us The euro-area recession deepened more than economists forecast with the worst performance in almost four years as its three biggest economies suffered slumping output.

Eurozone GDP sunk .2% in the second quarter and is clearly back in recession as a whole. For that matter, the eurozone has been in recession all year if not starting in the final quarter of 2011.