PARIS, Feb 12 (Reuters) - French gross domestic product fell 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, protesting officials at statistics office INSEE said on Thursday, leaking the data a day before its official release.
The decline shown in a press release provided by the statisticians showed France's GDP for the full year of 2008 rose by 0.7 percent. There was no immediate comment from INSEE.
In an accompanying statement, the group said they were protesting at what they believed was a government policy of systematically announcing economic data to the media before it was officially released. (Reporting by Francois Murphy and James Mackenzie; editing by Crispian Balmer)