France unemployment rate rises to 8.3%, challenging Macron's full-employment goal

France's unemployment rate has risen to 8.3% of the active population as of the second quarter of 2026, according to Insee. This represents a 0.2 percentage point increase over three months and a 0.7 percentage point increase over the past year.

The rise brings the total number of unemployed individuals to 2.677 million, an increase of 261,000 compared to the previous year. This marks the sixth consecutive quarter of rising unemployment and is the highest level recorded since the 2020 pandemic period, and the highest since 2019 excluding the COVID-19 crisis.

This trend challenges the policy goal set by President Emmanuel Macron in 2022 to reach a 5% unemployment rate—the economic threshold for full employment—by the end of his second mandate in 2027. Despite years of labor law reforms, unemployment insurance restrictions, and corporate subsidies, the target now appears mathematically unreachable without a significant economic reversal.