The euro zone made a strong showing in economic reports today.
The main news was a drop in the unemployment rate this month despite mounting suspicion over the reliability of French figures weeks ahead of a presidential election.
Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office, said the euro zone's jobless rate dropped to 7.3 per cent in February from 7.4 per cent the month before and 7.5 per cent in December.
Contradicting the government's announcement yesterday of a fall in French unemployment to a 24-year low at 8.4 per cent in February, Eurostat today put it at 8.8 per cent. It also revised its January figure to 8.9 per cent from 8.4 per cent.
Elsewhere, Euro zone sentiment hit a six-year high at 111.2 points in March from 109.7 in February, defying predictions of a drop, and pushing the index closer to its all-time high of 117.4 at the peak of the dot.com boom in May 2000.
Inflation also rose in March, but only slightly. Consumer prices rose 1.9 per cent year on year after 1.8 per cent in February, said Eurostat.
After yesterday's news of a further big decline in German unemployment, the central bank said today that February retail sales rose 1.3 per cent month-on-month in seasonally adjusted terms after January's 9.6 per cent slump.
German consumer spending has long been the country's big weakness but economists expect an improvement once the impact of a January sale tax rise peters out, probably after the first quarter.