There is a distinct advantage for a president in announcing a target at the start of a second term: If it fails, they never truly have to answer for it. Unlike François Hollande (2012-2017), who partly tied his potential 2017 re-election bid to “inverting the unemployment curve” ( though other factors eventually led him to bow out in 2016), Emmanuel Macron can dodge the political concsequences of having missed his full employment target, a pledge made during his 2022 campaign and reiterated in 2024, as he cannot run again in 2027.
According to figures released on Tuesday, February 10, by the French national statistics office, INSEE, the number of unemployed people, according to the International Labour Organization definition, rose by 56,000 in the last quarter of 2025 compared to the previous three months, reaching 2.5 million. The unemployment rate climbed to 7.9% of the workforce – up from 7.7% the previous quarter and 7.3% a year earlier. The president’s ambition to bring unemployment down to 5% by 2027 is now a distant memory. On this front, France still lags behind its European neighbors. In Germany, the unemployment rate remains stable at 3.8%. Italy recently fell below the historic 6% threshold. The European Union average stands at 5.9%.
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