France’s productive specialisation and cost competitiveness are better than Germany’s
France’s growth has become significantly higher than Germany’s since mid-2018. This cannot be explained by the size of exports. Yet everything seems to favour Germany: the quality of the education system, labour force skills, the employment rate and structural unemployment, R&D, patents, corporate automation. But today: France’s productive specialisation in industry is much more favourable than Germany’s; France has a greater capacity to develop services than Germany; France’s cost competitiveness has become significantly better than Germany ’ s; France is not afflicted by excess savings , unlike Germany.