Workers grade and box harvested clementines at Foleli on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica on October 29, 2020, before they are transported to customers. (Photo: AFP)

The French economy bounced back strongly in the third quarter following the lifting of the coronavirus lockdown, the national statistics office Insee said on Friday.

France's gross domestic product expanded by 18.2 percent in the period from July to September compared with the preceding three months, Insee said in a statement. Nevertheless, economic output was "sharply lower than it had been before the crisis," with GDP down by 4.3 percent on a year-on-year basis, the statisticians calculated in preliminary data.