France created jobs at the fastest pace in five years in the second quarter amid healthy employment growth in the construction and service sectors.
National statistics office INSEE said non-farm payrolls in the euro zone's second biggest economy stood at 15,563,600 in the second quarter, up 0.3 per cent from the first three months of the year and 0.7 per cent from a year earlier.
It was the biggest quarterly increase in non-farm payrolls since the third quarter of 2001 and came in the same quarter as a sharp pick-up in economic growth, which recent data put at 1.1 to 1.2 per cent - the strongest in almost six years.
France's unemployment rate has fallen to 9 per cent, its lowest level in four years and sharply down from the five-year high of 10.2 per cent in May 2005.
Recent anecdotal evidence suggests that healthy job creation may last a while longer - a development which would cheer Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who has said he wants unemployment to fall to 8 per cent by the summer of 2007.