France, Germany avoids eurozone recession in third quarter

The eurozone slipped into its second recession since 2009 in the third quarter of this year, with output falling 0.1%, Eurostat data showed on Thursday. France and Germany managed to buck the trend, with both managing 0.2% growth in the same period.

Economic output in the 17-country euro zone fell 0.1 percent in the third quarter, the EU’s statistics office Eurostat said on Thursday, following a 0.2-percent drop in the second quarter.

Those two quarters of contraction put the euro zone’s 9.4 trillion euro ($12 trillion) economy officially in recession, although Italy and Spain have been contracting for a year already and Greece is suffering an outright depression.

Germany and France, the euro zone’s biggest economies, could not save the bloc from a double-dip recession even though both countries managed 0.2 percent growth in the quarter. Large, countries like Italy, Spain and the Netherlands all contracted and Belgium, a big exporter, stagnated.

Millions of people across Europe protested against government spending cuts that EU policymakers say are crucial to ending the debt crisis but which others blame for the economic contraction.