French household consumption increased by 0.4% in March compared to February, driven by purchases of manufactured goods (0.8%) and purchases of food goods (0.5%), according to INSEE. The increase in purchases of manufactured goods is mainly due to the increase in consumption of durable goods (1%), particularly purchases of new cars, which had fallen sharply in January.
Clothing and textile spending rebounded (1.3% after -0.5% in February), mainly due to an increase in spending on clothing, as well as, to a lesser extent, on shoes and leather. The increase in food expenditure continued to rise for the third month in a row (0.5% after 0.7% and 0.4% in February and January), driven mainly by various food products such as chocolate and confectionery, beverages and canned fish and other processed fish. Conversely, energy expenditure decreased by 0.6%, driven by a drop in electricity consumption. Gas consumption and fuel purchases are up slightly.
Over the first quarter as a whole, household consumption increased by 0.1% compared to the previous quarter. In February, household consumption increased slightly, by 0.1%, adds INSEE, which had previously announced stagnation for this month.