In an election year nothing works better for ruling parties than presenting rosy statistics. Unless those figures are damned lies.
This week, the French Labor Ministry proudly announced that unemployment in the country fell to 8.4%, its lowest level in 24 years. A nice boost for the conservative government weeks before presidential elections?
Not so, says Eurostat, the central European statistics agency. According to them, the French are basing part of their statistics on a survey that’s deemed unreliable. Eurostat puts the unemployment figure at 8.8%, and claims that it uses the same calculation method across Europe, which makes comparisons between countries more reliable – and less flattery for the French.
Within the Euro zone, France is the country with the highest unemployment, and among the 27 countries of the European Union only Poland and Slovakia have higher unemployment figures.
The real situation is even worse. The French statistics exclude jobseekers in overseas departments, people who are looking for part-time and temp jobs, jobseekers who are over 57 years old, people who have already worked over 78 hours during the month, and those who are not immediately available (being trained, sick, pregnant, etc.).
The French unemployment offices (ANPE) count no less than 4.45 million jobseekers, which is more than twice the “official” number of unemployed.
The moral of the story? Don’t believe statistics, especially in an election year.
Previously on Frogsmoke: 2.1 Million French unemployed? Double that, say other statistics
