France: From cyclical and external factors to structural factors

France’s growth since 2010 has been heavily influence d by cyclical and external factors: The c yclical factors have been the recovery in credit, investment and real estate thanks to the fall in interest rates, and fiscal deficit reduction until 2017 when the deficit stopped being reduced ; The e xternal factors have been the fall and subsequent recovery in global trade and exports, the depreciation of the euro and the fall and then rise in oil prices. But French growth is now going to be dominated by structural factors: weak productivity gains, the rise in the structural unemployment rate, deindustrialisation. These structural factors point towards a scenario of modest growth.