SXMElections.com

PARIS--The euro has fallen, oil prices have tumbled, and borrowing rates are at record lows: French President Francois Hollande has had much of his economic wishlist granted, and it may just help him kickstart a long-awaited recovery in 2015.
  Granted, the short-term lethargy and structural problems in the euro zone's second-largest economy mean that it will remain a major worry for others in the single currency bloc. But the global context together with new reforms due to kick in next year are leading some to bet that France can achieve its 1 percent growth target for next year - modest by many standards but more than twice the 2014 growth estimate of 0.4 percent.
  Crude oil prices have nearly halved since June and the euro, a drop in which has long been sought by French politicians to help exports, has lost 11 percent since May. At the same time, Paris is borrowing at its cheapest rates ever.
  "The chances of the government getting the 1 percent growth it based its budget on have risen quite substantially," said Peter Jarrett, head of division responsible for France at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
  "Now it's not an unreasonable number, while a month or six weeks ago I would have said it was optimistic," he said.
  Some at the sharp end of the economy agree. "Three stars are aligned: the weaker euro, cheap oil and low interest rates. This should help kickstart economic activity," Xavier Beulin, head of France's FNSEA farm lobby, told Reuters.
  For Beulin, the maths are simple: poultry farmers make a loss on exports to markets such as the Middle East with a euro at $1.35. But at $1.23, where it is now, they make money. Agriculture may only be a small part of the economy, but the fall in oil prices also cuts costs for truck and taxi drivers, whose noisy protests have piled pressure on Hollande's government.
  Economists at France's INSEE statistics office estimates that a sustained fall of 20 euros in oil prices could add as much as 0.5 percentage points to growth in the subsequent year if it leads consumers to spend and businesses to invest. If oil prices remain at early December levels throughout 2015 French industry could expect a 3.4 billion euro windfall compared with 2013, said Denis Ferrand, managing director of economic institute COE-Rexecode.
  Competition in the refining sector means the chunk of the drop in crude prices being passed on to industry and consumers has risen to 80 percent in France in the last year compared with 60-70 percent in previous years.
  While energy imports are limited by France's nuclear production, firms remain sensitive to oil prices as they use a lot of power: in 2012, France needed 142.9 kilos of oil equivalent to produce 1,000 euros of GDP, compared with 129.2 kg for Germany and 105.1 kg for Britain, Eurostat says.