France

The Bank of France reported a widening loss in 2024 after booking one-off gains the previous year and as it continues to digest rapid changes in the European Central Bank’s monetary policy in recent years, Bloomberg News reported. Like other central banks in the euro-area network, France’s is squeezed between servicing deposits at the high interest rates imposed on the economy to fight inflation and only small income flows from bonds purchased when borrowing costs were low.

Bankruptcies in France's tech start-up sector are increasing, according to a survey published on Tuesday whose findings could undermine President Emmanuel Macron's image of Paris as a leading European tech hub and key driver of the French economy, Reuters reported. During his first term in office, Macron touted Station F in Paris as an example of France's burgeoning tech start-up industry, and France's global AI summit in February attracted 110 billion euros of investment pledges.

A group of secured creditors of Altice France SA, unhappy with the deal arranged between the company and a majority of its creditors to cut about €8.6 billion ($9 billion) of debt, have tapped advisers to find ways to improve their terms, Bloomberg News reported. These creditors — which hold debt maturing in 2028 and 2029 — are working with law firm Ashurst LLP and boutique French advisory firm Ceres Partners.

German inflation unexpectedly remained unchanged in February, highlighting the challenges for the European Central Bank in deciding how quickly and how far to cut interest rates, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices increased 2.8% from a year ago, the statistics office said Friday. Economists in a Bloomberg survey had expected a slight slowdown to 2.7%. The report follows earlier figures showing French inflation retreated to its lowest level in four years, while price gains in Italy surprisingly held steady.

Altice France, the European telecom giant led by billionaire Patrick Drahi, has struck a global debt deal with investors holding more than $25 billion in bonds and loans, one of the largest of a new breed of restructuring transactions, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The deal, which includes most of Altice’s creditors, could be the largest liability-management exercise for a European business to date.

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he planned to impose tariffs on Canada and France over their digital services taxes on U.S. technology giants, which has been a long-standing irritant, Reuters reported. Canada, seeking to address the challenge of taxing digital giants like Google parent Alphabet and Amazon.com that can book their profits in low-tax countries, began imposing the tax in June last year. Trump tasked his economics team on Thursday with devising a plan to impose reciprocal tariffs on every country that levied duties on U.S. imports.

France’s economy is heading for only slight growth at the start of the year and uncertainty remains high for business leaders, the country’s central bank said, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product will likely rise between 0.1% and 0.2% in the first quarter, with underlying momentum little changed from the end of 2024, according to the Bank of France’s monthly survey of 8,500 companies.

An artificial intelligence race is heating up between the United States and China — but don’t count Europe out. That was the pitch that President Emmanuel Macron of France made on Monday as Paris hosted an A.I. summit, where government leaders, top tech executives and academic experts have gathered to discuss the hopes surrounding A.I., as well as the fears of economic and societal disruption that the rapidly evolving technology has fueled, the New York Times reported. “We are back in the race,” Mr.

French factory production unexpectedly dropped at the end of the year, contributing to a backsliding in the eurozone’s second-largest economy, with few signs of a rapid rebound at the start of 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported. Total output of goods was 0.7% lower on month in December, reversing a slight increase in November, statistics agency Insee said Wednesday. That was a worse result than the stagnation forecast by economists, according to a poll compiled by The Wall Street Journal, and means output decreased in seven out of 12 months last year.

French inflation was stable at the beginning of the year, figures showed Friday, a day after the European Central Bank again lowered its key interest rates amid a eurozone economy going nowhere fast, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were 1.8% higher on year in January, the same rate as in December, according to EU-harmomized numbers published by France’s statistics authority. That was a little less than economists had expected, according to a poll compiled by The Wall Street Journal, and keeps inflation below the 2% threshold targeted by the ECB.