The economic downturn drove French primary energy consumption down by 5.2% in 2009 from a year earlier, the biggest annual drop since 1975, according to official data released Wednesday.

Primary energy consumption fell to 259.2 million metric tons of oil equivalent in France last year from 273.6 in 2008. Demand was dramatically weighed down by a weak economy, with a 15% drop in manufacturing production and a 12% decline of truck traffic, a report from the French ecology, energy and economic sustainability ministry said.

France 's energy mix was relatively unaffected compared with a year earlier, with a 43% share for primary electricity, 32% for oil, 15% for gas, 4% for coal and the remaining 6% for waste and renewable energy.

However, the 2009 oil consumption of 82.7 million tons of oil equivalent was much less than 93.3 million tons in 2002. The ministry said that drop points to a long-term declining trend in oil consumption. During the same period, primary electricity consumption declined to 110.8 million tons of oil equivalent in 2009 from 113.5 million tons of oil equivalent in 2002. Consumption of renewable energy rose to 16 million tons of oil equivalent last year from 11.8 million, the report shows.
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