France’s central bank is about to tell the world that prices are rising faster than it expected. Governor Emmanuel Moulin, speaking at the Europlace Paris Finance Forum on June 9, confirmed that the Bank of France will revise its 2026 inflation forecast upward from the 1.7% baseline it published in March.
The culprit is familiar: energy prices, supercharged by the ongoing Iran war, have proven more destabilizing than the bank’s models had projected.
The numbers tell a clear story
France’s harmonized inflation rate hit 2.8% year-over-year in May, a meaningful jump from the 2.5% reading in April. That trajectory is moving in exactly the wrong direction for a central bank that had been forecasting a relatively tame price environment for the year.
France experienced an unexpected economic contraction in the first quarter of 2026. Business sentiment has deteriorated markedly alongside it. So the revised forecast won’t just show higher inflation. It’s expected to reflect weaker economic growth too.
