Europe, Second Quarter | featured news

The Swiss economy has long appeared to be surprisingly resilient to the economic downturn across Europe, but the latest statistics released Tuesday showed that Switzerland is slowing down together with the rest of Europe. After a strong first quarter, the economy contracted in the second because of falling exports to the euro zone, the Alpine country's biggest trade partner. Compared with a year earlier, the Swiss economy still managed to expand at a 0.5% pace, but it contracted 0.1% from the first quarter.

French economic growth ground to a halt in the second quarter, raising pressure on the government to cut spending and abolish tax breaks to convince turbulent financial markets it will deliver on debt reduction targets.