French central bank sees zero GDP growth in Q4

The French Central Bank, Banque de France (BdF), on Thursday said it expected stagnated growth during the last three months of this year due to global financial turmoil. In its monthly economic report, the BdF said French industrial businesses registered a slight increase at the end of November. The bank forecasted unchanged performance of the sector over the coming months. Despite the contraction in temporary work, service activities inched up in November but in the short-term future, the sector would witness stagnation, according to the bank. The business sentiment indicator in industry lost one point to 95 while that of services remained unchanged at 95. Facing threat of a possible debt crisis contagion, France slashed its growth rate to 1 percent next year from previous forecasts of 1.75 percent.