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This chart shows the annual evolution of the unemployment rate in France from the first quarter of 1975 to the third quarter of 2024. The share of job seekers among the active population was 7.5 percent at the beginning of 2024, the lowest rate since the second quarter of 2020, which preceded the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

An unemployment rate marked by financial, social, and health crises

Several major international crises have shaken the French economy. In 1973 and 1979, two oil shocks caused the price of a barrel to spike. Highly dependent on low-priced energy for its development, France saw its GDP contract in those years. The financial crises of the 1990s and 2000s caused unemployment rates to rise to historic levels. At the beginning of 1997, the unemployment rate reached 10.7 percent. The arrival in power of Lionel Jospin’s socialist government quickly brought the unemployment rate down to 7.7 percent in 2001. The 2008 financial crisis linked to the bursting of the real estate bubble in the United States plunged France into a long period of unemployment above 10 percent. It was from 2015 that employment conditions began to improve. The latest major crisis was this time related to health restrictions that halted most economic activities in France. In the second quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate jumped to 9.1 percent before rapidly decreasing after the gradual lifting of restrictions. But the economic impacts of COVID-19 go beyond the sole measure of unemployment. Several sectors, such as tourism, were still heavily affected in 2022 by a decline in activity.

The war in Ukraine, a possible next social and economic crisis

The Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory led to the imposition of sanctions against Putin’s government. Russia was excluded from the SWIFT banking transaction system, the assets of a thousand Russian individuals were frozen, and the European Union imposed an embargo on several Russian products. But in return, the Kremlin played on the sensitive issue of energy prices. The price of gas and a barrel of oil exploded in February and March 2022. The price at the pump exceeded two euros per liter in France. The transport and logistics sectors could be strongly affected by this rise in fuel prices, thus triggering a new social crisis in certain sectors.