With the exception of an exception during the COVID crisis, the unemployment rate in France was corrected to 7.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022 and remained there in the first three months of this year, according to official figures released on Wednesday. This is the lowest level since 1982.
The information will be encouraging for President Emmanuel Macron and his administration as they struggle with high inflation and work to put pension reforms behind them after they sparked months of strikes and occasionally violent street protests.
Youth unemployment decreased by 0.2 percentage points in the first quarter to 16.6%, more than 5 percentage points below pre-COVID levels, according to the INSEE statistics office.
Meanwhile, the rate of long-term unemployment fell to 1.8% of the active workforce, the lowest level since early 2009.
Macron inherited a jobless rate of 9.5% when he entered the Elysee Palace in 2017 and made lowering the number below 7% a central aim of reforms to loosen labour market rules and boost vocational training.
