President Jacques Chirac made employment a top priority for next year, promising a new law to boost job creation during his New Year's Eve speech.
Chirac spoke after the French national statistics agency on Wednesday announced a slight decrease in the jobless rate, from 9.7 percent in October to 9.6 percent in November.
The jobless news suggested that France's economic recovery remains on track after a third-quarter pickup.
Chirac, speaking on television, thanked the French for helping bring growth last year. GDP in 2003 was expected to reach a modest 0.2 percent expansion.
"What is at stake in 2004 is to make the most of this growth, with one priority: employment," Chirac said.
Chirac said he had asked the prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, to consult with business leaders and unions at the start of this year to come up with a new law on employment.
"The government has already done much [for job creation]," Chirac said. "But to switch to a higher gear, we need new means of action."
The call for mobilization echoed past efforts to bring down unemployment.
The previous Socialist-led government lowered the working week from 39 to 35 hours, an attempt to force companies to hire more staff to keep productivity in line.
However, conservative Chirac and business executives claim the shorter week has made France less competitive. One of the main complaints is that it puts strain on smaller businesses.
By now, parliament has chipped away at the Socialist legacy, raising the limit on overtime hours and reducing benefit payments by employers.
"The 35-hour workweek was putting the brakes on activity," Chirac said in his speech. "It has been made more flexible."
The statistics agency, Insee, said that the number of unemployed dropped by 7,000 to just over 2.6 million in November.
It used data standards set by the International Labor Institute.
Economists had expected the number of people out of work to rise by 10,000-15,000.
Still, the overall jobless rate has climbed over the past year.
It stood at 9.2 percent in November 2002.
The unemployment figures "let us hope that the structural policies of the government over the past 18 months are starting to bear fruit," Social Affairs Minister Francois Fillon said.
Some market watchers remained cautious about the numbers' implications.
BNP Paribas economist Dominique Barbet said the unemployment data were surprising given modest growth and the delay between employment and output cycles.
"It's too early to judge whether the drop will continue ... or whether we are just facing some odd data before the actual pickup of the labor market occurs," Barbet said.
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