{"id":428824,"date":"2026-03-24T15:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T08:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/03\/france-march-flash-services-pmi-48-3-vs-49-0-expected\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T15:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T08:25:10","slug":"france-march-flash-services-pmi-48-3-vs-49-0-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/france-march-flash-services-pmi-48-3-vs-49-0-expected-428824\/","title":{"rendered":"France March flash services PMI 48.3 vs 49.0 expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Prior 49.6<\/li>\n<li>Manufacturing PMI 50.2 vs 49.5 expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior 50.1<\/li>\n<li>Composite PMI 48.3 vs 49.3 expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior 49.9<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">It&#8217;s not a good look for France&#8217;s economy at the end of Q1 with business activity slumping to a five-month low. The services sector was the main drag, also seeing its weakest showing in five months as it falls further into contraction territory. While manufacturing activity was a two-month high, it belies the underlying performance of the sector with output falling to a four-month low.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">Amid higher energy prices, a key focus of the report is on prices. And we&#8217;re already seeing evidence of the Middle East crisis having an impact with input cost inflation accelerating sharply to<br \/>\nits strongest since November 2023. That in particular for the manufacturing sector. Trouble, trouble.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">HCOB notes that:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">&#8220;It&#8217;s clear from March &#8216;flash&#8217; PMI data that Europe&#8217;s<br \/>\nsusceptibility to international supply-side disruption<br \/>\nremains high. Soaring oil and oil-product prices, rising<br \/>\nfuel costs and disrupted maritime supply chains have<br \/>\nled to the worst delivery delays from vendors in over<br \/>\nthree years and pushed up input prices for French<br \/>\ncompanies to an extent not witnessed since late-2023.<br \/>\nWe saw a very limited pass-through to selling prices,<br \/>\nhowever, likely because prevailing demand conditions<br \/>\nprior to the war in the Middle East were subdued. This<br \/>\ndynamic could play a crucial role in determining how<br \/>\nmuch of this supply shock filters through to the wider<br \/>\neconomy.\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">&#8220;March was further complicated by local elections,<br \/>\nwith firms reporting that clients held back on spending<br \/>\nas a consequence. For that reason, April may give us a<br \/>\nbetter indication of the true state of the economy, but<br \/>\nfor now, France&#8217;s burgeoning recovery looks to be on<br \/>\nice. A sharp reduction in business confidence backs<br \/>\nthis assessment, with the threat of higher inflation,<br \/>\nprolonged supply-side disruption and heightened<br \/>\nnear-term uncertainty prompting a re-evaluation of the<br \/>\noutlook.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior 49.6 Manufacturing PMI 50.2 vs 49.5 expected Prior 50.1 Composite PMI 48.3 vs 49.3 expected Prior 49.9 It&#8217;s not a good look for France&#8217;s economy at the end of Q1 with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}