It is now feeling the full force of a severe shock that is impacting both supply and demand. Our monthly business survey of 8,500 businesses carried out between 27 March and 3 April illustrates the effect of the lockdown measures that have been in force since 17 March. The measures have had a major impact on business activity, which was down by 32% in March, and consequently on our quarterly GDP growth estimate which was down by around 6% in the first quarter. In all sectors, activity is dropping, and in most cases, dramatically. This decline is not solely the result of the context in France. Orders from abroad have also been badly hit, as the epidemic is affecting the majority of French businesses’ major trading partners. In industry, the automobile, metallurgy, and machinery and equipment manufacturing sectors were the worst affected by the decline in activity. For  Page 2 of 8 industry as a whole, the capacity utilisation rate fell from 78% in February to 56% in March, which is the lowest rate ever recorded in the survey. In services, the greatest slump was seen in accommodation and catering. Construction sector activity also deteriorated significantly, as a number of construction projects were put on hold at the beginning of the lockdown period (Slide 3). In short, at the end of March, the economy was running at two-thirds of its normal pace.
This means that every two weeks of lockdown “costs” us approximately 1.5% of lost annual GDP and at least 1% of additional government deficit. II. Building the appropriate economic policy responses  2.1 The emergency: rapid, strong and convergent responses during the crisis Confronted with this unprecedented, and totally unforeseeable crisis, rapid, strong and convergent responses were implemented across the board in fifteen days to stem the effects of a severe economic shock. The lessons of 2008 have not been forgotten. Seldom has there been such a solid consensus on the direction and the scope of the measures to be taken, including among economists, which is quite rare. In France, we have put in place a shield to protect businesses of all sizes and to help them get through this shock, which in turn protects their employees. This “cash shield” is fashioned from both unprecedented fiscal and monetary measures. The fiscal measures put in place by the government primarily revolve around deferring payments of taxes and social security contributions, a solidarity fund for the self-employed and above all initiatives for those in partial employment – formerly referred to as “technical unemployment”, but we have fortunately inverted that description. France has thus learned from the success of Germany and its Kurzarbeit in 2009.