Partie II. Le temps de la reprise. Perspectives 2021-2022 pour l’économie française

Based on the French government?s announced health timetable, average annual GDP growth in 2021 will be +5%, with household and government expenditure rebounding by 4% and investment by 7%. The external contribution will be positive in 2021, which would offset half of the external losses incurred in 2020. At the end of 2021, the level of activity would be 1 percent below the level observed in the fourth quarter of 2019. In 2021, the branches most affected by the shock were hotels and restaurants, transport services, the manufacture of transport equipment, coking and refining, and household services, which account for 12 percent of GDP but 60 percent of the losses in activity. Over the period 2020-2021, company own funds will have been slashed by nearly 90 billion euros. The government as a whole will have absorbed about 80% of the total loss of income in the economy over the years 2020-2021. Finally, household "Covid-savings", which have accumulated over two years, will account for about 160 billion euros, or more than 10 percentage points of household annual income. The forecast for 2022 depends crucially on how the "Covid-savings" built up by households are used. In a scenario where 20 per cent of this surplus savings is consumed, French growth would be 6 per cent in 2022, the unemployment rate 8.7 per cent and the public debt 115 per cent of GDP. If this "Covid-savings" were not to be consumed at all, then in 2022 the growth rate would be 4.3 percent, the unemployment rate 9.4 percent and public debt 117 percent of GDP.