'Sick' France's economy is stricken by unemployment 'fever'

It has gone back on a promise to the European Union to get the deficit below the maximum of 3pc of GDP by next year, pushing it back to 2017 and setting France on a collision course with Brussels and austerity-minded Germany.

Added to its economic woes, the country is weighed down by a political crisis that has seen President Francois Hollande plumb record lows in opinion polls and a shock cabinet reshuffle in August to purge dissenters.

The government's unpopularity "is due to a lack of results," said Mr Macron. "We didn't go far enough in our first two years, we didn't reform and we are paying, if I may say, for a lost decade."

In a rare victory for the government, Prime Minister Manuel Valls scraped through a parliamentary confidence vote on Tuesday by 269 votes to 244.

However, about 30 MPs from the ruling Socialist Party abstained in the vote, a rebellious left-wing rump that could cause problems for the government in future parliamentary votes.

The French government's response to the economic crisis is the so-called "Responsibility Pact", a €40bn (£32bn) package of tax breaks for business, financed with €50bn in public spending cuts.

But the plan has been the target of left-wing politicians for being too business-friendly and too austere at a time of economic crisis.

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