Chart of the week: Vive la résistance!

You’d be forgiven for thinking French President Emmanuel Macron’s tenure hasn’t been a roaring success. Since coming to power in May 2017, he’s faced protests from vast swathes of his nation, all keen to show their dissent at his reforms. There was concern that consumers would stop spending and the economy would grind to a halt. But with his reforms starting to bear fruit, this President’s resolve looks set to remain. French industry is making a comeback, despite a pronounced global manufacturing slump, and is now actually creating jobs. That might not be a particularly arresting fact until you note that French industry shed jobs every single year between 2012 and 2017. Not only that, but the French economy outstripped expectations by growing at an annualised pace of 1.4% in the third quarter, surviving the global slowdown better than Germany — its larger and more trade-dependent counterpart at the core of the eurozone economy. Read more about France’s recovery in ‘Macron’s résistance’, an article in our latest InvestmentInsights.