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France

French unemployment hits 12-year high

French unemployment is at its highest since 1999 with over four million people looking for work in November. The month saw a jobless rise of 5.6 per cent and economists are forecasting more jobs gloom to come.

AFP/D Charlet
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France’s unemployment rate now stands at 4.244.800 with November seeing the seventh consecutive monthly rise in the number of people signing on at job centres.

Unemployment rose twice as fast in 2011 than in 2010, despite government promises to create jobs.

Under-25s and over-50s were worst affected and there was an 11 per cent rise in new claimants who had lost their jobs due to redundancy.

President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is likely to be reminded of his promise to help the French “work more to earn more” during next year’s presidential election campaign, has called a jobs summit with employers and union for 12 January.

“Unemployment is not an exclusively French problem,” Labour Minister Xavier Bertrand said Tuesday. “Only Germany is seeing unemployment fall at the moment because it has been making fundamental reforms to its labour market for the last 10 years. We’ve only been making them for a few years. That’s the difference.”

Bertrand said that proposals to encourage short-time working and changing labour law would be raised at the summit.

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