• August business confidence 98 vs 98 expected
• Prior 97

The French business climate indicator picks up again in August, nudging back up to the highest since February. That being said, it’s still keeping below the long-term average threshold of 100 – not having touched that since May 2024.

The improvement comes amid better sentiment in most broader sectors with employment conditions also holding steady. The detailed breakdown is seen below:

• Manufacturing confidence 103 vs 101 prior
• Services confidence 100 vs 99 prior
• Retail trade confidence 99 vs 96 prior
• Employment indicator 99 vs 99 prior

This is at least a good signal of how French business sentiment is holding up in Q3, but we’ll have a better sense of how things actually might be playing out from the PMI data later in the day.