French labour minister sparks storm with call for benefits crackdown

French Labour Minister François Rebsamen has caused a storm with an order to crack down on alleged unemployment benefit fraud. According to the government, there are some 350,000 jobs available, which France's state employment agency Pôle Emploi is having a hard time filling.

François Rebsamen, 27 août 2010. AFP/Bertrand Guay

Rebsamen has ordered Pôle Emploi’s management to beef up checks to make sure claimants are really "looking for a job".

The agency has been trying out new measures to follow claimants more closely in four French regions for the last year.

Unemployment is at an all-time high in France with 3.42 million people looking for work.

“We are stunned and outraged,” Pierre-Edouard Magnan of the National Unemployed Movement told RFI. “We are utterly shocked because they are singling out the unemployed by saying it’s their fault they’re unemployed because they are not looking for work.”

Rebsamen is dividing those in work from those out of it, Magnan, argues.

“Even if there were really 350,000 full-time jobs going, would that be enough for the five million people that are unemployed in our country?” he asks.

Trade unions and left-wingers accused Rebsamen, who is considered to be close to President François Hollande, of putting forward right-wing arguments.

“It’s time to stop guilt-tripping the unemployed and lay to rest the myth of voluntary unemployment,” declared Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Left Party.

The latest storm comes after Prime Minister Manuel Valls's cabinet reshuffle, in which he purged left-wingers critical of the government's austerity policies, replacing economy minister Arnaud Montebourg with former merchant banker Emmanuel Macron.