Published by Jamie JemmesonConsumer spending in France declined in January after the scaling down of president Nicolas Sarkozy's new car sales incentive programme.The official data, which is likely to put further pressure on the euro in foreign exchange trading today, shows a 2.7 per cent drop in spending on manufactured goods, following a 1.3 per cent rise in December.Dominique Barbet, an economist at BNP Paribas in Paris, told Bloomberg: "We had very good figures at the end of last year linked to the car scrappage plan and this effect is now disappearing. January was always going to be weak."Meanwhile, unemployment figures are also expected to weigh on the French economy in the months to come, as the Finance Ministry expects to see a further 71,000 job losses this year, against 373,000 in 2009.Further figures from Paris-based statistics office Insee showed that while spending fell, consumer prices actually rose in January, marking the third month of inflation.For more information on international payments, visit our Smart FX site.