PARIS (Reuters) - French consumer spending rebounded in November by 0.4 percent after a revised 0.8 percent fall in October, the INSEE national statistics agency said on Tuesday, while confirming that in the third quarter the economy eked out 0.3 percent growth.
Spending on gas and electricity consumption was partly behind the rise, picking up 0.8 percent in November following a sharp six percent drop in the previous month due to milder-than-usual weather. Over the year, total expenditure on energy products dropped by 8.9 percent, the agency said.
A Reuters poll had forecast on average that spending rose by 0.6 percent in November.
A separate set of INSEE data showed that producer prices fell by 0.1 percent month-on-month in November, the latest sign that inflation pressures are largely absent from the euro zone's second largest economy.
INSEE confirmed earlier estimates of growth at 0.3 percent in the third quarter of this year. Last week it predicted that the economy would grow 0.4 percent for the year as a whole, before expanding 0.3 percent in both the first two quarters of 2015, helped by low oil prices and a weak euro.
However, it predicted the unemployment rate would climb from 10.4 percent at the end of this year to 10.6 percent at the end of the second quarter.
Separately, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said November unemployment data due on Wednesday "would not be good."
"Given the level of growth we have had in 2014 ... I am afraid it won't be good news," he told Europe 1 radio.
(Reporting by Hannah Murphy; editing by Mark John)