France's unemployment rate shot up at a record rate to 8.7% in the first quarter of 2009, official data showed today as economists warned it could rise to as high as 10% this year.
'It's clearly a bad figure,' Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said. 'There has been a deterioration in the job situation which is quite simply a consequence of a deterioration in the economic situation,' she added.
The unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2008 was 7.6%. France has not seen such high quarterly growth in unemployment since 1975 when the national statistics agency INSEE began recording comparable data. The rate itself has, however, been higher at 8.8% in 2006.
Lagarde said the situation was 'deteriorating less sharply than elsewhere' and said the rate was 'under the European Union average.'
Euro zone unemployment hit a decade-high of 9.2% in April. The European Commission has forecast that unemployment in France will rise to 9.6% in 2009 and 10.7% in 2010.
