{"id":436670,"date":"2026-08-21T14:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T07:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/french-business-activity-contracts-further-in-august-as-demand-conditions-remain-subdued-436670\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T14:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T07:15:15","slug":"french-business-activity-contracts-further-in-august-as-demand-conditions-remain-subdued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/french-business-activity-contracts-further-in-august-as-demand-conditions-remain-subdued-436670\/","title":{"rendered":"French business activity contracts further in August as demand conditions remain subdued"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>August flash services PMI 48.4 vs 49.8 expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior 49.6<\/li>\n<li>August flash manufacturing PMI 51.5 vs 50.0 expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior 49.8<\/li>\n<li>August flash composite PMI 48.8 vs 49.5 expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior 49.4<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">The French private sector economy remains weak in August, with another contraction seen in overall business activity. This once again continues to reaffirm that the French economy remains on track for yet another subdued and mediocre quarterly showing as demand conditions remain soft.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">The services sector was the main drag, offsetting the better showing in the manufacturing sector in August &#8211; which saw production rise for the first time since April. Of note,\u00a0extreme heat was cited as a reason for<br \/>\nlower activity levels. That sees demand conditions fall off further as new orders<br \/>\ndecreased modestly, extending the current period of falling<br \/>\nsales volumes to nine months.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">Meanwhile, input price inflation did at least slow to a five-month low. That indicates receding cost pressures, although the rate of<br \/>\nincrease in output charges was broadly unchanged. And even on the drop,\u00a0the rate of input price inflation<br \/>\nremained above that seen just before the period before the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">S&amp;P Global notes that:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\"><p>&#8220;While the weather certainly heated up across Europe<br \/>\nthis summer, France&#8217;s economy is barely lukewarm.<br \/>\nThe flash PMI report revealed another month of frail<br \/>\neconomic conditions, with some firms, mainly in the<br \/>\nservice sector, highlighting the extreme heat as a<br \/>\nreason for lower activity and demand. There was some<br \/>\nrenewed vigour in the manufacturing sector, however,<br \/>\nas production rose for the first time since April&#8217;s<br \/>\nstockpile-driven boost, potentially indicating some<br \/>\nmore stability for factories as inflation in the goodsproducing sector remains on a downward trajectory.<br \/>\nThat said, inflation in the service sector ticked up<br \/>\nfor the first time since May as renewed pressures on<br \/>\nglobal oil prices translated into higher fuel costs. Firms&#8217;<br \/>\ndecisiveness when passing on higher expenses could<br \/>\nhave implications for the inflation outlook.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>                            This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>August flash services PMI 48.4 vs 49.8 expected Prior 49.6 August flash manufacturing PMI 51.5 vs 50.0 expected Prior 49.8 August flash composite PMI 48.8 vs 49.5 expected Prior 49.4 The French&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-436670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436670","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=436670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}