French unemployment rises to 8.3% in Q2 2026, highest since 2020, as Macron's 5.5% pledge fades

Unemployment at highest since 2020

France's unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points in the second quarter of 2026 to 8.3%, the Insee national statistics institute announced on Friday 7 August. The figure is the highest since the third quarter of 2020, when the Covid crisis depressed labour markets. The number of people without work and actively seeking employment rose by 62,000 compared with the previous quarter, reaching 2.7 million. Over one year, the rate has climbed 0.7 points. The previous quarter stood at 8.1%, and at the end of 2024 it was 7.4%.

The 8.3% figure stands far from the 5.5% target President Emmanuel Macron promised during his 2022 re-election campaign. Le Parisien describes the gap as a broken promise for the president.

Minister cites geopolitics and statistical effects

Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou, speaking on Franceinfo, called the figures not a surprise. He pointed to the war in Iran, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and rising oil and gas prices as factors making French companies hesitant.

It is not the right time to launch projects and to hire.

Farandou also cited a technical effect from the full employment law, passed in December 2023 and in force since early 2025. The law systematically registers RSA welfare beneficiaries and young people in local missions with France Travail, the employment service. If they find work, the employment rate, currently at 69%, improves; if not, they count as unemployed. Farandou said this effect accounts for roughly half the deterioration. He stated that without the RSA and youth contract effects, the rate would be 7.9%, 0.4 points lower.

Structural pressures on the labour market

Economist Simon-Pierre Sangayrac of the Fondation Jean-Jaurès told Ouest France that the rise stems primarily from insufficient job creation. Growth has slowed since mid-2024 and is expected to remain below 1% in 2026. When growth is too low, its job content depletes and unemployment rises, he said. Political instability since the 2024 dissolution of the National Assembly and international tensions in Ukraine and Iran have dampened household consumption and investment, the two main engines of French growth.

The 2023 pension reform has also expanded the active population by keeping older workers in the labour force longer. Its suspension will not take effect until September 2026. When some of these seniors end up without work, they push the unemployment rate higher. Insee teams additionally identified a paradoxical effect of the full employment law: by registering RSA beneficiaries and young people at France Travail, it pushes them to declare themselves as job seekers, inflating the active population.

Young people and seniors most affected

Farandou said employment difficulties concentrate among seniors aged 60 and over and among young people. He pledged to put the weight on youth programmes, noting that apprenticeship budgets would increase next year. Separately, Les Echos reported that the share of 15-to-29-year-olds who are neither in employment, education nor training (NEET) has reached 13.3%, following the same upward trend as the unemployment rate.