FRANCE DATA: Stronger Retail Sales Helped By Spike In New Car Sales

French retail sales volumes saw their largest monthly increase in over four years in November to leave their level at its highest since Sep 2023 after a few dour years. PPI inflation meanwhile saw an energy-driven acceleration on the month although base effects drove a deflationary -3.3% Y/Y. 

• French retail sales volumes grew 1.5% M/M in November (fastest since Jun 2021) after a modest 0.2% M/M in October, with most sectors seeing either rebounds of October weakness or sharp spikes, particularly new cars and household appliances.
• The 0.7% Y/Y marked its first positive reading since May, although it did follow a downward revised -1.0% (initial -0.7), whilst the index is now at its highest since Sep 2023 after what's been a particularly tepid trend in the past couple years - see chart.
• The Banque de France highlights continued strength in manufactured goods sales (1.9% M/M vs 0.6% Oct) and a rebound in food sales (0.9% M/M vs -0.4% Oct).
• Looking further into the details, after "several months of particularly sluggish sales", new car sales jumped 13.1% M/M (vs 0.6% Oct). Other notable moves include household appliances (8.2% M/M vs -0.9% Oct) and bicycles and motorcycles (-3.2% M/M vs 3.0% Oct).
• New automobiles are weighted 6.2% in the index, and household appliances 3.0%. Automobile equipment (2.3% weight) also saw a decent 2.8% M/M rise in sales.
• Also released this morning, French PPI increased a non-seasonlly adjusted 1.1% M/M in November after 0.0%, although that still meant deflation of -3.3% Y/Y after -0.8% in October. The monthly rise was almost entirely driven by higher energy and refining input prices, which grew 3.7% and 6.3% M/M respectively (with all other sectors relatively stable) - though we note very strong monthly increase in these sectors in Nov 2024 contributing to the year-on-year drop.