{"id":431374,"date":"2026-06-03T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/06\/french-service-economy-contracts-at-sharpest-pace-since-late-2020-in-may\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T15:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:00:08","slug":"french-service-economy-contracts-at-sharpest-pace-since-late-2020-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/06\/french-service-economy-contracts-at-sharpest-pace-since-late-2020-in-may\/","title":{"rendered":"French service economy contracts at sharpest pace since late-2020 in May"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Services PMI 44.3 vs 42.9 prelim<\/li>\n<li>Prior 46.5<\/li>\n<li>Composite PMI 44.9 vs 43.5 prelim<\/li>\n<li>Prior 47.6<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">Even with an improvement to the initial estimates, this is still a very poor reading for French services activity. Of note, both activity and new business levels decreased<br \/>\nat their steepest rates in five-and-a-half years with employment conditions also deteriorating at its quickest pace since early last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">Adding more woes to the weakening business sentiment is that the French economy saw a further sharp uplift in<br \/>\ninflationary pressures during May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">The rate of input price<br \/>\ninflation accelerated for the third straight month in May,<br \/>\nreaching its highest in just over three years. Meanwhile, French service providers raised their charges midway through<br \/>\nthe second quarter as rapid cost increases prompted at least<br \/>\nsome pass-through to customers. The extent to which output<br \/>\nprices rose was the quickest since June 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">S&amp;P Global notes that:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">&#8220;France&#8217;s service sector, which had already been<br \/>\nshowing vulnerability prior to the outbreak of war in the<br \/>\nMiddle East, suffered a heavy setback in May. Further<br \/>\nfalls in the PMI measures of activity and new business<br \/>\ntook them down to levels which ring recession alarm<br \/>\nbells.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">&#8220;Geopolitical uncertainty is restricting decision-making,<br \/>\nwhile surging price pressures are eroding purchasing<br \/>\npower. It&#8217;s hard to see how France&#8217;s economy can spring<br \/>\nback to life against this backdrop, strongly raising the<br \/>\nprospect of a contraction in GDP for the second quarter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Services PMI 44.3 vs 42.9 prelim Prior 46.5 Composite PMI 44.9 vs 43.5 prelim Prior 47.6 Even with an improvement to the initial estimates, this is still a very poor reading for&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-431374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431374","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=431374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}