French spending rises

December 20, 2001 Posted: 1135 GMT

LONDON (CNN) -- French consumer spending rose for a second consecutive month in November, boosted by purchases of clothes, shoes and cars.

Consumer spending rose 0.2 percent in November from October and 2.8 percent compared to November 2000.

Revised figures for October showed that expenditure recovered in the month after the September 11 terror attacks, suggesting that the attacks had only a fleeting impact on spending habits.

"The consumer spending figures are better that what we were expecting... The October revision is important and it shows the trend in the fourth quarter is positive," David Naude, an economist at Deutsche Bank, told Reuters.

The national statistics office, INSEE, reported on Thursday that household outlays on manufactured goods rose 0.2 percent in November and in October, after a 0.4 percent dip in September that was bigger than initial estimates.

A 1.4 percent rise in purchases of clothes and shoes, probably due at least in part to the start of pre-Christmas shopping, was the main driving force behind the overall increase in November, while car purchases, up 0.5 percent, continued to bolster expenditure.

Initial signs from the first few weeks of December show that the large department stores of Paris are hoping there will be no difference this year to the traditional spending splurge in the run-up to the end-of-month festivities.