France's national statistic office INSEE said on Thursday the country's unemployment rate jumped to 8.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, its highest quarterly growth since 1975.
Figures from the INSEE show the unemployment rate rose 1.1 per cent from 7.1 per cent in the last quarter of 2008 in mainland France.
However, joblessness rose up to 9.1 per cent when it included overseas territories such as the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, which suffered weeks of strikes over pay earlier this year.
French Minister of Economy Christine Lagarde said in an interview with a radio program that the French employment situation has deteriorated because the country's economy is hit hard by the global economic slowdown.
Lagarde said the French jobless rate was bad but "under the European Union average", adding that France's employment "is deteriorating at a slower rate than elsewhere."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy launched a plan in April to spend more than one billion euros (1.4 billion dollars) to help unemployed young people.
Economists predicted that the French unemployment rate would rise to above 10 per cent in 2010.