France / Hollande will miss job target poll says as unemployment hits record level

An overwhelming majority of French people believe President Francois Hollande’s government will fail to reduce record high unemployment this year, a poll showed on Friday.

The government is clinging to the Socialist leader’s pledge to revert a relentless unemployment rise even as data showed on Thursday that more people were jobless than any time on record, with the country on the edge of recession.

In the BVA poll, just 5 percent expected unemployment to drop this year, while a third of respondents reckoned it would take more than 3 years to see the fall promised by Hollande, whose popularity rating is the lowest of all French presidents of the past half-century.

Even among left-winger voters who might be expected to give Hollande the benefit of the doubt, only 10 percent believed the target he has set is achievable.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor

via Most French believe Hollande will miss job target: poll – chicagotribune.com.

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French jobless claims hit all-time high in March 

More people were out of job in France in March than at any other time in the past, data on Thursday showed, a bleak record that cast new doubt on government promises to reverse the unemployment trend by year-end.

The new 3.225 million record, an 11.5 percent annual increase, is a symbolic blow to Socialist President Francois Hollande, whose approval ratings have sunk to the lowest of any modern French leader in recent months as jobless claims soared.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor

via French jobless claims hit all-time high in March | Reuters.