France: Business confidence eases to a five-month low in September
Business confidence came in at 106.3 in September, below August’s 109.6 and signaling the lowest reading since April. However, the index remained above the 100-threshold, indicating optimism among businesses.
September’s downturn was chiefly driven by firms’ growing pessimism with regards to their assessment of overall order books, foreign books and past workforce size. On top of this, personal production expectations turned less positive compared to the prior month. On a brighter note, however, employment intentions improved in September and business grew more optimistic regarding the general production expectations.