French economy to expand faster

French Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the broadest measure of growth, should expand in 2012 by 0.7 percent compared with earlier forecasts of 0.5 percent, the Finance Ministry said Friday. The revision comes largely because of new data on the country's expected economic performance in the first six months. The French government had originally tabled growth at about 1.75 percent this year but revised this figure downward because of the international economic context and the crisis in Europe. It also revised 2013 growth forecasts Friday, bringing the figure down to 1. 75 percent from 2.0 percent. The Finance Ministry said that last year's GDP expanded by 1.7 percent, up 0.3 percent from 2010. France had been expecting to fall into recession at the end of the second quarter of 2012, but it may avoid this now if the latest projections are correct.