France's industrial production plunged 20.1 percent in April from a month earlier due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, the national statistics bureau INSEE's figures showed on Wednesday.
Output also slumped sharply in manufacturing industry by 21.9 percent in April after a 18.3 percent drop in March, INSEE said.
In April, France, one of the world's leading exporters of manufactured goods, registered a 88-percent fall in the manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, which brought the aggregate figure for the manufacture of transport equipment to a 47.5-percent fall.
Output in the manufacture of machinery and equipment goods slumped 24.6 percent, while "other manufacturing", which includes the production of textiles, wearing apparel, leather and chemical, saw a drop of 22.3 percent.
Meanwhile, output bounced back in the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products by 9 percent in April compared with a fall of 30.5 percent a month earlier, "because of the restart of a refinery which was stopped for maintenance in March," INSEE noted.
Quarterly figures showed a 15.8-percent drop in the country's overall industrial production over the first three months of 2020. Manufacturing output lost 17.4 percent.
Manufacturing output in the last three months dropped 17.7 percent year-on-year. In the manufacturing sector alone, cumulative output over the last three months declined 19.4 percent from the same three months a year ago.
France was under strict lockdown between mid-March and May 11 to contain the coronavirus epidemic. Bank of France, the country's central bank, estimated that during the first two weeks of lockdown in March, economic activities registered a 32-percent loss while in April, the country's economy operated at 27 percent below normal levels.
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