Persisting social unrest and torrential rains risk damping France’s economic recovery. At a time President Francois Hollande is struggling to maintain economic momentum, the costs of floods and strikes hitting refineries, railways, ports and air traffic may compound an expected second-quarter slowdown just when the recovery was starting to feed through into the labor market. Insurance executives met with government officials in Paris Monday to assess the cost of flooding as the Seine river receded from its highest levels in more than three decades. Meanwhile, railway operator SNCF said strikes and protests against the government’s labor reform plan are costing it 15 million to 20 million euros a day. “Social unrest and the floods won’t play well with the French recovery story,” said Claus Vistesen, chief euro-zone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics Ltd, based at Newcastle, in a telephone interview. “The second quarter is already […]