Paris, Jan 8 France's consumer price index (CPI) is expected to rise by 1.3 per cent year-on-year in December 2024, the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) announced.
In its preliminary report released on Tuesday, INSEE noted that the December CPI should increase at the same pace as in November. The institute explained that a slight rebound in energy prices should be offset by a more marked fall in the prices of manufactured goods and by a slowdown in food prices.
Over the year, the prices of services and tobacco should move at the same rates as the previous month, reports Xinhua news agency, quoting the institute.
Mathieu Plane, deputy director of the Analysis and Forecasting Department at the French Economic Observatory, said high inflation is now "well and truly past" in France.
An unexpected decline in energy prices in 2024 made it possible for France to escape high inflation rates "a little earlier than expected," Plane told Le Monde newspaper.
In the latest economic outlook published in December 2024 by France's central bank, Banque de France (BdF), headline inflation in France was revised downwards due to lower oil prices and an unexpected slowdown in prices of manufactured goods and services.
Annual inflation for 2024 should stay at 2.4 per cent, BdF said, and 1.6 per cent in 2025 due to a slowdown in energy prices.
Last year, the INSEE had announced that CPI rose by 1.1 per cent year-on-year in September 2024, slightly down from the 1.2 per cent projected in its preliminary report.
This marked the second consecutive month that the CPI remained below the 2-per cent benchmark, with inflation at its lowest level since March 2021, following a revised 1.8-per cent increase in August 2024.
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