French Q3 growth beats expectations, maintains 0.3% pace

French economic growth defied expectations for a modest slowdown in the third quarter, expanding instead at the same 0.3 percent pace from the previous quarter, the INSEE national statistics office said on Wednesday.

The resilience in French gross domestic product will be good news for President Emmanuel Macron, at a time of concerns about a global slowdown brought about by international trade disputes which have hit the nation's main trading partner Germany hard.

A poll of analysts surveyed by Reuters had forecast 0.2 percent growth for the euro zone's second-largest economy in the three months to end-September.