Paris (AFP)

The French economic recovery is going "a little better" than the Banque de France had recently forecast, said its governor François Villeroy de Galhau on Sunday.

"I am not saying at all that we are out of the woods, this is a very serious crisis. In addition, its effects on employment are offset over time, so they are coming, but the recovery is happening less as well as we expected, and even a little better, "he said on LCI.

He thus lifted a corner of the veil on the trend that will be given Tuesday, during a review of a new estimate of French growth in the second quarter.

"I do not yet have all the figures, we will give them on Tuesday morning," he said, before adding: "It is going at least as well as we had planned at the beginning of June, during our latest figures, and even a little better. "

After initially forecasting a rise in growth to "-12% at the end of June", he estimated on Sunday that "it will be better than that", counting on a figure a little better than the -15% forecast for the second quarter.

Over the whole year, "the latest trends confirm our figure, it will be -10% or even - we will make a revision in September_- maybe a little better", concluded the governor.

He described a recovery curve "in a bird's wing", with first a "brutal plunge, we go back like a half-V at the beginning, but then, it will gradually flatten out because we will put more time to return to the initial level, that before March ", explained François Villeroy de Galhau, counting on a rhythm comparable to that known before the crisis" probably in 2022, at the beginning of the year or mid-year " .

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