Paris—France’s longest transport strike in decades over a sweeping pensions overhaul hit economic growth, causing a rare contraction in the last quarter of 2019 and a below-par figure for the full year, statistics showed Friday.
GDP growth slowed to 1.2 percent for 2019 as a whole, statistics office INSEE said, weighed down by a 0.1-percent contraction in the last three months of the year—the first quarterly fall since April-June 2016.
INSEE had originally tabled growth of 0.3 percent last quarter.
The government, which started off last year aiming for 1.7 percent growth, had hoped a series of tax cuts and wage boosts for low earners would cushion the blow from the “yellow vest” protests that faded only toward last summer.
But the massive strike launched on December 5 against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform kept many shoppers away from stores during the crucial run-up to the year-end holidays.