The central bank of France announced that it expects no growth of the French economy in the first half of 2012. Moreover, BNP Paribas reported that slight contraction between 0.1 and 0.2% of the economy is expected in Q1. The country's economy expanded by 0.2% in Q4 of 2011. Moreover, France recently halved its GDP growth expectation for whole 2012 to 0.5% from 1%.