The French labour market was seriously affected by the economic crisis in the first quarter of 2009 as unemployment soared to 8.7 per cent for the period, the government's statistics office INSEE said Thursday, according to DPA. That represents some 2.46 million jobless people in the workforce and is up from 7.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year. Including France's overseas territories, the unemployment rate for the first quarter of this year was 9.1 per cent, INSEE said. "This is a bad result ... a very substantial deterioration," Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told Europe 1 radio Thursday. Lagarde said the depressed labour market "will continue," and noted that French GDP is expected to shrink by "about 3 per cent" this year.
