French manufacturing suffered its worst quarterly drop since 2012 in the first three months of this year, underscoring a loss of momentum experienced in the euro region.
The 1.8 percent slump from the fourth quarter was the first decline in more than a year, according to Bloomberg calculations from the French statistics agency’s index. The wider measure of industrial production in Europe’s second-biggest economy fell 1.3 percent. That was the largest since the third quarter of 2013.
