The French economy is likely to suffer a modest slowdown in the first half of the year in the face of a global financial crisis and inflation of around 3.0 percent, the nationmal statistics agency said Friday.
   
The agency, known as INSEE, forecast momentum of 0.4 percent in the first quarter and 0.3 percent in the second.
   
The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on Thursday predicted growth of 0.4 percent in the first and second quarters of 2008.
   
INSEE said that to achieve an overall expansion of 2.0 percent this year, the government target, the French economy would have to grow 0.8 percent in the third and fourth quarters.
   
But analysts caution that such a pace might prove unrealistic given the constraints on the world economy and a global credit crunch brought on by a sharp downturn in the US housing market.
   
Economy Minister Christine Lagarde acknowledged Thursday that the government's upcoming provisional growth forecasts for the year would be "slightly lower" than had previously been foreseen.
   
She did not provide figures but maintained that the French econony was performing better than that of France's European Union partners Britain and Germany.
   
The OECD, however, predicted growth in Germany of 0.6 percent in the first quarter and 0.4 percent in the second, as well as 0.6 percent in both quarters in Britain -- stronger momentum than is foreseen in France.
   
The INSEE study found that sluggish economic activity combined with tighter credit conditions would limit growth in productive investment to 0.5 percent in the first and second quarters.
   
At the same time the overall growth pace was likely to be hampered by a slowdown in consumer spending of 2.0 percent in annual terms over the first half. But the econony would nonetheless manage to resist the full effects of "robust and sustained inflation" and weak gains in purchasing power, according to the agency.
   
INSEE said annual inflation between now and June should avearge 3.0 percent. While energy-related inflation was expected to ease, with the price of a barrel of oil stabilising at around 95 dollars, food prices were likely to rise.
   
"This hike in inflation is not a good sign for households, even if they are able to resist an erosion in their purchasing power," said INSEE economist Pierre-Olivier Beffy.
   
He nonetheless said purchasing power should rise by only 0.3 percent in the first half, sustained by a stable jobless rate and the impact of tax cuts approved last year.
   
INSEE forecast that unemployment, which declined in 2006 and 2007, would stabilize at around 7.5 percent of the workforce in the first six months of the year, when the economy is expected to create 96,000 jobs.