Unemployment in France eased to an almost 15-year low in the last three months of 2022, official data showed on Tuesday, marking a figure that should be welcomed by the government as it faces massive protests against its proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
The unemployment rate edged down to 7.2% from 7.3% in the previous three months, the INSEE statistics agency said, whereas economists polled by Reuters had expected that rate to remain unchanged.
"It is the lowest rate since the first quarter of 2008, with the exception of an anomalous drop during the second quarter of 2020 amidst the first (COVID-19 related) lockdown", INSEE said in a statement.
Unemployment has fallen from 9.5% when French President Emmanuel Macron first took office in 2017. He was re-elected for a second term last May, though failed to secure a majority in Parliament in a June general election.
INSEE's report showed that youth unemployment fell to 16.9% in the fourth quarter from a revised 17.9% in the three previous months.
Meanwhile, the employment rate - the share of the
workforce in work - stayed at 68.3%, the highest level since
INSEE began keeping records in 1975.
(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten;
Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
