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A Paris-born team of forecasters fielded by Futurist Herman Kahn's Hudson Institute caused a sensation in Europe last spring when it predicted that the French gross national product would surpass West Germany's in the 1980s. Now a Swiss research firm, Prognos, A.G., has come to a contrary conclusion: though West Germany is headed for some severe strains, it is likely to remain dominant in Western Europe for at least 20 years.

The Hudson study was commissioned by the French government. The 600-page report by Prognos, a well-regarded Basel firm, was prepared for corporate customers. Kahn's researchers concluded that the French would pass the Germans because of the greater productivity of French workers coupled with France's foothold in such future-oriented industries as aerospace and computers. Hudson's 5.5% yearly growth rate for France is projected as the highest of any industrialized European nation. Yet Prognos Economist Claus D. Kernig argues that France is "still so far behind in total output that it is unlikely to catch up with Germany in the next two decades."

Prognos researchers believe West Germany should be able to continue growing at a 4.5% yearly rate. If it does, the West German economy by 1985 could more than double in size and reach the 1 trillion Deutsche Mark level--about $418 billion at current rates. Meanwhile, Prognos reckons, France will still be a distant second, with a G.N.P. of about $270 billion; Britain, with a $150 billion G.N.P., will remain in third place, only slightly ahead of Italy (comparisons are difficult because of distortions in exchange rates).

Other Prognos forecasts:

> The 2,300,000 "guest workers" in West Germany (mostly Turks, Yugoslavs and Italians) will swell to nearly 3,300,000 as German manufacturers rely more heavily on low-paid foreign help to raise their productivity. In German plants, productivity will rise by a steady 5% a year (the long-term U.S. average is 3.1%). The German work week will shrink from 42 to 38 hours.

> Personal incomes in West Germany, already Europe's highest, will increase from today's average of $3,440 per capita annually to $8,960. Yet inflation will take much of the Gemuetlichkeit out of the German future. (The magazine Jasmin predicts that the price of potatoes in German shops will quadruple by 1980, while a dentist's fee for gold bridgework will increase a painful 1,000%.)

> West German exports will surge from less than 35% of industrial output currently to more than 50%. But lopsidedly favorable German trade balances will finally begin to diminish because Germans will be investing more of their marks abroad while paying more for raw materials from the developing countries.

> For the first time, the German government will be forced to deal with a problem that is familiar in the U.S.--special "structural" unemployment in a time of economic expansion. Explains Economist Kernig: "Germany will soon see more Germans seeking work, while more immigrant workers have jobs."

The Prognos prognosticators forecast two traumatic developments, both arising from saturated world auto markets and the relatively poor productivity of German auto workers. (With 610,000 workers, the German auto industry turns out slightly less than one-third as many cars as Detroit does with about 800,000 workers; Japan, with only 570,000 auto workers, produces 40% more cars than Germany.) The forecasters see the land of the Volkswagen Beetle becoming an exporter of a few expensive cars and an importer of millions of cheap ones, notably from Japan.

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