Economy in Brief: 2025

The INSEE survey of household confidence in France eased in November after having seen some rebound in October. The chart shows that household confidence has generally been giving back ground over the past year; that contrasts to the business climate indicator that has been stable during this period, with a very slight uptrend.

Household confidence has a 29.3 percentile (rank) standing on data back to 2001, marking the level of confidence as a lower one-third phenomenon for France in November.

Living standards over the past 12 months had been relatively stable, posting a value of -74 in November, much the same as what we see over the earlier five months and translating into a ranked standing in its lower 15-percentile, a relatively weak result. The outlook for living standards over the next 12 months is at a diffusion value of -55; however, it is still at a relatively weak 15-percentile standing. The prospects for unemployment had diminished slightly over the last five months, but currently the reading has a 62.6 percentile standing. That's a rank standing above the 50th percentile, marking it as a concern about unemployment that's slightly higher than the median for the period.

Price developments in November yield a diffusion rating of -9, very little change compared to the previous four months and with the rank standing at its 37th percentile, basically suggesting that there was not much concern about inflation over the past 12 months. The next 12-month reading is at -32 in November, unchanged from October and slightly weaker than the previous three months; however, the standing is at its 49th percentile, which is essentially at its median.

The favorability to save, at a reading of 45 in November, had stepped up slightly over the past five months, while the ability to save over the next 12 months had also crept up very slightly. Each of these metrics has a very high ranked percentile standing in the 99th percentile. Favorability to save responses are generally strongly correlated with unfavourability to spend and we see that here again with the favorability to make major purchases at a -30 reading in November and having generally slipped from the previous five months and having fallen to a percentile standing in its 16.3 percentile, quite a weak situation.

The financial situation over the past 12 months had largely been unchanged at the level of the November reading; it has a 64.3 percentile standing, above its historic median. However, for the next 12 months the financial situation, while also having improved compared to its recent history, has a percentile standing only in its 43.5 percentile.

The INSEE household confidence survey for November remains weak and continues to show soft spots. There is little evidence of firming across the components, and the trend behavior is that this index has been slipping at a slow pace over about the last year. None of that seems to be changed as of November 2025.

Germany’s IFO climate gauge fell in November logging a -16.5 net diffusion score after -14.6 in October. The overall index for climate ranks in its 18.4 percentile on data back to the early 1990s. Among the five key sectors that the table illuminates, only one, construction, has a ranking above 50% which puts it over its median for the period. Manufacturing is at a 13.6 percentile standing, retailing is at a 14.1 percentile standing, services are at a 16.8 percentile standing, and wholesaling is at a 26.9 percentile standing - all of these quite weak.

More on Climate.... On a month-to-month basis, climate eased lower for the headline, manufacturing, construction, and retailing. There were month-to-month improvements in wholesaling, as it improved slightly to -19.4 in November from -20.5 in October and then services where a ‘zero’ reading in October crept up to a 0.5 positive reading in November.

Current Conditions The current conditions metric for the IFO improved slightly to -5 in November from -5.6 in October. Improvements were pretty much across the board in all sectors with the exception of retailing that fell relatively sharply to a -20.9 reading in November from -16.6 in October. Once again, the percentile standings for these five sectors - this time for current conditions - show all of them below their historic median except for construction at a 62.1 percentile standing. The overall current index has a 10.4 percentile standing

Expectations...not so great expectations... Expectations in this report weakened across the board with the headline moving to -10 in November from -8 in October. Manufacturing deteriorated particularly sharply falling to -7.1 in November from -2 in October. All sectors weakened, most of them with more modest month-to-month deterioration. The queue ranked standings for the all-sector reading is at the 21.9 percentile mark. Most of the sectors have a 20 to mid-20 percentile standing; the exceptions are construction with a 30.7 percentile standing and retailing with the very weak 7.9 percentile standing

Summing up The weakening in the IFO index this month was unexpected. While current conditions were broadly getting slightly better, expectations took a significant step back in the month, raising questions about how the German economy is doing and what sorts of readings we're going to see next month afterward given this unexpected turn of events for the worse.