France Inflation Rate: Monthly Year-over-Year Data Since 1991

The France inflation rate here is the year-over-year change in the national consumer price index computed by INSEE for all households across the whole of France, monthly since January 1991. It is the national measure, not the harmonised HICP the ECB targets: the two differ by construction and the national one is the legally operative index in France. This Eco3min dataset derives the rate from a CPI level series chained across INSEE base 2015 and base 2025, giving 427 continuous monthly observations.

Dataset: France Inflation Rate, year-over-year (1991–2026) · Updated 2026-07-01

Source: INSEE · consumer price index, all households, whole of France · year-over-year change computed by Eco3min

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV, Excel and JSON files contain the following columns.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full France inflation rate series is available in CSV and Excel formats.

Direct Data Access

INSEE publishes year-over-year rates alongside the index, but split across successive base datasets. The Eco3min structured dataset returns the continuous 1991–2026 rate series:

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-inflation-rate.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool. JSON and XLSX are available at the same path with the corresponding extension.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-inflation-rate.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["inflation_yoy"].describe())

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-inflation-rate.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$inflation_yoy)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

The rate is computed by an Eco3min pipeline from the underlying CPI level series, which is itself chained across INSEE base 2015 and base 2025 over their 360-month overlap. Deriving the rate from a chained level series rather than concatenating INSEE’s own published rates avoids the artefacts that appear around rebasing dates.

The transformation is a simple twelve-month percentage change applied after chaining, which removes the first twelve months of the level series — hence a rate series starting in January 1991 for a level series starting in January 1990. INSEE releases a provisional estimate at month end and the definitive index in the middle of the following month; the pipeline picks up revisions automatically and rewrites the full series at each run.

Historical Regimes

• 1991–1998 — convergence discipline. The rate fell from 3.34% to close to 1%, driven by the franc fort policy and the Maastricht convergence criteria. This is the decade in which French inflation expectations were durably anchored.
• 1999–2007 — the quiet euro years. The rate oscillated in a narrow band around 2%, rarely straying more than a point either side. Measured inflation and perceived inflation diverged sharply after the 2002 euro changeover, a gap INSEE documented but could not close.
• 2008–2009 — spike and technical deflation. The rate hit 3.61% in July 2008 with oil above 140 dollars, then fell to −0.72% in July 2009 — the series low. The swing of more than four points in twelve months came almost entirely from the energy base effect.
• 2010–2020 — the undershoot decade. The rate averaged well below 2% and printed negative in several months, notably −0.38% in January 2015. The ECB’s asset purchase programme was launched that same quarter.
• 2021–2023 — the energy and food shock. From 0.56% in January 2021 to 6.28% in February 2023. France peaked below its euro area neighbours, in large part because regulated tariffs and the tariff shield capped the pass-through of wholesale energy prices to households.
• 2024–2026 — normalisation. The rate came back to 3.13% in January 2024, 1.65% in January 2025, and 2.12% in July 2026. The unwinding of the tariff shield partly offset the underlying disinflation, which is why the descent was less smooth than in the harmonised measure.

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Macroeconomic Dataset Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.

Explore the Eco3min Dataset Hub

Sources

• INSEE — consumer price index, all households, whole of France. Datasets IPC-2015 and IPC-2025, retrieved from the INSEE BDM time-series database.
• Year-over-year transformation computed by Eco3min from the chained level series.
• Reuse: INSEE public statistics may be reused, including commercially, subject to acknowledgement of the source and preservation of the integrity of the information.

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). France Inflation Rate, year-over-year (1991–2026). Source: INSEE.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/france-inflation-rate-dataset/