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By Francois Murphy
PARIS, Dec 23 (Reuters) - French consumer spending rose unexpectedly in November, driven by shoppers' appetite for household goods such as fridges and televisions, data showed on Tuesday.
Consumer spending, traditionally the cornerstone of growth in the euro zone's second biggest economy, rose 0.3 percent in November compared with October, national statistics office INSEE said. Economists predicted a 0.1 percent fall in a Reuters poll.
The French government has slashed its growth forecast for next year to a fraction of one percent as the global financial crisis contaminates the real economy but there were signs in November of at least some firmness in high street sales.
"It's not bad. It's better than we expected. It's a figure that rather confirms the relatively good state of French consumption at the end of the year," said BNP Paribas analyst Dominique Barbet.
INSEE also downwardly revised the previous month's fall. The October figure, which was reported a month ago as -0.4 percent, was revised to -0.5 percent.
On a year-on-year basis, consumer spending rose 1.0 percent in November.
"At the moment, consumer spending is the only thing that's holding up amid the crisis, because everything else is going down," said Alexander Law, chief economist at Xerfi.
"But let's not get carried away -- the automotive sector and clothing are both down in the dumps."
Spending on durable goods rose 0.6 percent, driven by a 3.4 percent jump in household equipment such as white goods and furniture, which outweighed a 2.1 percent fall in car sales.
Spending on textile and leather goods fell 1.0 percent while outlays in the miscellaneous "other manufactured products" category rose 0.5 percent.
The data gave no indication of why consumers increased their spending, but inflation has fallen significantly as oil prices have tumbled to less than a third of their July record high of over $147 a barrel.
"It is the direct effect on purchasing power of the fall in fuel prices," BNP's Barbet said of the rise in spending.
That would fit with the findings of the German GfK market research group released on Monday, which said German consumer morale should hold steady going into 2009 as slowing inflation buoys households' readiness to buy.
But economists warned against reading too much into the French consumer spending data.
"For me the picture has not changed spectacularly. It's better but when we look at the levels we see that consumption is not moving anymore, that the trend is flat and may fluctuate from month to month," said Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis Asset Management. (Additional reporting by Brian Rohan and Veronique Tison; Editing by Andy Bruce)