French Manufacturing Output Rebounds 0.3% in August, While Overall Industry Falls 0.3%

French manufacturing output rose 0.3% in August, recovering part of July’s 0.8% decline, but the improvement was not enough to lift the broader industrial sector. Total industrial production fell 0.3% after a 0.6% drop in July, according to data released Tuesday by France’s national statistics agency, INSEE.

The divergence was driven largely by activity outside manufacturing. Production in mining and quarrying, energy, water supply and waste management fell 2.4% from July, reversing a 0.2% increase. INSEE said the decrease mainly reflected lower electricity production after electricity output reached its highest level since December 2021 in July. Manufacturing carries a weight of 7,529 in INSEE’s 10,000-point industrial aggregate, compared with 2,471 for the mining, energy, water and waste group, so the decline in that part of industry was large enough to pull the overall index lower.

INSEE’s August industrial production release put the seasonally and working-day adjusted manufacturing index at 102.82, up from 102.49 in July but still below 103.36 in June. The broader industrial index stood at 102.3. The figures make the August manufacturing gain a partial rebound rather than a return to the stronger levels recorded earlier in the summer.

Chemicals and equipment drove the manufacturing rebound

The strongest support came from the broad category INSEE calls “other industrial products,” which includes metallurgy, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Output in that group rose 1.2% in August after falling 1.2% in July. Within it, chemicals increased 4.6%, and the category covering other manufacturing plus repair and installation of machinery rose 3.7%. Those gains were partly offset by a 1.4% decline in pharmaceuticals and a 2.6% drop in rubber, plastics and other non-metallic mineral products.

Machinery and equipment goods also improved, rising 0.9% after a 1.6% July decline. Computer, electronic and optical products increased 1.4%, and electrical equipment rose 2.6%. General machinery and equipment, however, slipped 0.6%. Coke and refined petroleum production advanced another 3.3% after an 8.3% jump in July, although that branch has a very small weight in INSEE’s overall industrial index and therefore contributes much less to the headline figure than larger manufacturing categories.

Weakness was concentrated in several economically important areas. Transport equipment output fell 2.2% after a 0.1% decline in July. Motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers dropped 3.4%, while other transport equipment declined 1.7%. Food and beverage manufacturing fell 1.2% after rising 0.4% in July. The mixture of strong gains in some equipment and chemical categories and declines in transport and food helps explain why the manufacturing rebound was positive but modest.

The monthly bounce has not erased the recent weakness

Longer comparisons remain softer than the August headline. Across June through August, manufacturing output was 1.9% lower than in the preceding three months, while total industrial production was down 0.6% compared with the preceding three months. Against the same three-month period a year earlier, manufacturing was 1.2% lower. Overall industry was nearly flat, down 0.1%, because a 3.5% annual increase in mining, energy and water-related output offset part of the weakness in manufacturing.

Transport equipment was one of the clearest drags over the year, with output in the latest three months down 5.0% from the same period in 2025. Food and beverages were down 1.5%, and the broad “other industrial products” group was 0.8% lower. By contrast, electrical, electronic and computer equipment was up 1.7%. The sector mix therefore remains uneven even as the August monthly manufacturing index moved higher.

Construction provided a separate positive monthly signal, with output up 0.7% in August after being unchanged in July. Building construction rose 2.0%, civil engineering gained 1.2%, and specialised construction activities increased 0.5%. That monthly improvement did not remove the sector’s broader weakness: construction output over June through August was 5.0% lower than in the same three months of 2025.

INSEE also revised July’s decline for total industry to 0.6% from the previously reported 0.4%, mainly because of a downward revision to electricity production and transport. The July manufacturing change was not revised after rounding and remained a decline of 0.8%. That revision makes the two-month picture for the overall industrial sector somewhat weaker than the earlier data had suggested.

September surveys show some resilience, with limits

Business surveys published before the latest hard production figures had already pointed to a pickup in August. The Banque de France’s September monthly business survey, based on responses from about 8,500 companies and establishments collected between August 27 and September 3, found that industrial activity strengthened in August but by less than businesses had expected a month earlier. The survey highlighted strength in IT, electronic and optical products and electrical equipment, areas that also showed gains in INSEE’s production data.

The survey also showed that industrial capacity utilisation edged down to 76.4% from 76.6% in July. Only 11% of manufacturing firms reported supply difficulties, unchanged from July, although constraints remained much more pronounced in aeronautics. For September, business leaders expected industrial activity to accelerate, but the Banque de France cautioned that companies were finding short-term activity harder than usual to forecast.

Other official indicators point to a mixed backdrop rather than a broad industrial upswing. INSEE’s manufacturing business-climate indicator stood at 101 in September, one point above its long-term average, with managers reporting better assessments of past and expected production but weaker views of overall order books. The Banque de France estimated that French gross domestic product could grow 0.1% in the third quarter, after INSEE reported that GDP was flat in the second quarter following a 0.2% contraction in the first.

The next scheduled INSEE industrial production release is due on November 5 at 08:45 and will cover September. That report will provide the next hard-data test of whether August’s manufacturing rebound broadened beyond a handful of stronger categories and whether the drag from energy-related production eased.