In addition, production activity, which has recently been more or less flat or weaker due to the effects of the slowdown in emerging economies, including China, and commodity-exporting economies and of an accident at a steel plant, is showing some weakness, mainly in the transportation equipment sector, whose supply chains have been disrupted by the damage caused mainly in Kumamoto Prefecture by the earthquake.
I don’t believe that this is an issue that concerns Europe. Indeed, France has been above 3% for many years now, so it clearly shows that the problem doesn’t lie so much with Europe, and it shows that there hasn’t really been austerity in France. France today, in 2017, is on the threshold of being able to pass below 3%.