Since the beginning of the month, two important figures relating to the French economy have been published: the latest estimate of the public deficit for the year 2025 and the balance of foreign trade in goods for the first half of the year. Neither of them was a pleasant surprise. With a rate of 5.4% in relation to GDP, an increase compared to 2024, the government is forced to adopt a finance law for 2026 including an effort to reduce the significant deficit, in excess of 40 billion euros, but it does not yet have a majority in the ...

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At a time when two major political crises are affecting the world, the war in Ukraine following its invasion by Russia and Israel's response to the massacres perpetrated by Hamas, the President of the United States was launching a trade war with an increase in customs duties imposed on all companies exporting to his country. It thus added to the disruption caused by these crises on supply chains an additional uncertainty that was detrimental to household consumption and business investment, and therefore to growth.

In doing so, Donald Trump broke with nearly a century of practices in favour of ...

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Contrary to the many pessimistic comments, the Chinese economy seems less affected than expected by international tensions, the threat of a trade war with massive increases in customs duties as well as the reorganization of supply chains made necessary by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The first estimate of GDP in the 2nd quarter of 2025 shows a growth rate of 5.2%, very marginally lower than that observed in the 1st quarter which was 5.4%. The official target of growth of around 5% in 2025 should therefore be achieved or, at least, approached.

This situation contrasts with the ...

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