Brits prefer to holiday in Europe than put their money there. In 2023, UK retail investors pulled almost £3bn from the region’s equity funds, having yanked out £5.5bn the year before. Flows have perked up slightly since then, but plenty of suspicion remains.
“We have little optimism regarding the short or long-term outlook for the French domestic economy, for the same reasons that we are gloomy about the outlook for the domestic economies of Europe,” wrote one fund manager this summer.
Ageing populations, low productivity and high levels of government debt all suggest growth will be “anaemic”, he concluded.