France: Europe’s weakest link

The recovery in the eurozone has lost momentum. And France’s performance has been especially disappointing.

The recovery in the eurozone has lost momentum. Activity in the manufacturing and services sectors has hit a six-month low, according to key surveys. France's performance was especially disappointing private-sector output has fallen in four months out of six this year. Meanwhile, Germany's closely followed indicator of business confidence is also at a six-month low.

What the commentators said

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.