Paris (AFP) - French growth slowed sharply in the third quarter, as gross domestic product advanced just 0.2 percent after a 0.5 percent jump in the spring, according to data released by National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) Fri.

This comes as inflation, which rose sharply to 6.2 percent year-on-year after slowing in August and September, began to affect the purchasing power of the French.

In line with the forecasts of the National Institute of Statistics and slightly less than that of the Bank of France (+0.25 percent), growth benefited from a slight increase in the production of services (+0.5 percent), although in this area it slowed down from the increase achieved in the spring. (1 percent).

The last three months of the year will be more difficult, with zero growth projected in the fourth quarter by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, which projects a rate of 2.6 percent for the full year 2022 (0.1 point lower than the government estimate).

With prices rising at an unprecedented rate since the mid-1980s, "(households) feel acutely the decline in their purchasing power," said Maxime Darmy, an economist on French affairs at Allianz Trade.

Data for the third quarter is not yet available, but the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies has already recorded a decline in purchasing power in the first half.

Thus, the indicator summarizing the loss of per capita purchasing power (“total disposable income per unit of consumption”) declined by 1.8 percent in the first quarter and by 1.2 percent in the second quarter.

The foregoing pushes families into the economy, as the National Institute of Statistics expects an improvement in the savings rate by the end of the year (17 percent, compared to 15.5 percent in the first half).

Household consumption spending on hotel and restaurant services has already begun to contract this summer, falling from 12.7 percent in the second quarter to just 0.6 percent in the July-September period.