French Finance Minister: reaffirms inflationary peaks to last several more months

PARIS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire reaffirmed on Wednesday that he expected the peak in inflation to last several more weeks or even several more months, before eventually going back down by the start of 2023.

"By the start of 2023, we will start to see that inflationary peak ease off," Le Maire told BFM TV.

Data published last month showed the French economy unexpectedly shrank in the first quarter as consumers struggled to cope with surging inflation that reached a record-high rate of 5.8% over 12 months in May.

Nevertheless, Le Maire has said he expects France to have positive economic growth for 2022.

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)