The Insee agency said that unemployment rose from 10.5 percent at the end of 2012.

Unemployment will increase by 2.5 percentage points this year, Insee predicted.

A report by national statistics agency Insee estimated that around 350,000 new jobs were created between 1998 and 2002 thanks to the 35-hour-week policy.

The jobless rate was 16.5 percent in 2009, according to Insee, the national statistics agency.

Unemployment could rise to 10.1 per cent by the end of the year, its highest level since 1989, Insee said.

France's Insee statistics office said confidence among factory executives was better than expected.

In January 2010, the club signed a contract with the company Insee.

For 2001, growth was 1.8 percent, slightly less than the 1.9 percent figure Insee had predicted.

Insee, the national statistics institute, predicted last week that it would shrink by 0.1 percent this year.

"Given the industrialists' outlook for their own production, business will continue to slow down over the coming months," Insee said.

Insee considers an immigrant a person born in a foreign country not having French citizenship at birth.

The official name of the club is Insee Police United.

The jobless rate grew from 10.5% in the last quarter of 2012, the official Insee statistics agency said.

Increased consumer spending and investment fueled the moderate growth, the national statistics office Insee reported.

According to Insee figures, the decline got stronger and stronger.

Insee estimates that it created between 300,000 and 350,000 jobs in the initial years, while productivity increased 4-5 per cent.

Insee's farm prices are based on those at which farmers sell their products to non-farmers, it said.

In 2008, according to Insee, immigrants and their direct descendants (2nd generation) numbered at 12 million making up about 20% of the population.

With unemployment still rising, households were more pessimistic than ever about the prospects for future living standards, according to Insee.

However, the Insee figures indicated a large disparity between the country's richest and poorest households.

Current data remains grim, with 49,600 industrial jobs lost in the year to August, according to the national statistics office, Insee.

Its where one of the big Icelandic rivers flows insee it on the mapright here.

That in sum is Insee's economic forecast for France.

Imports outpaced exports in the quarter due largely to the rising price of oil, the Insee said.

France, too, surpassed expectations with growth of 1 percent, the steepest increase since spring 2006, according to the statistics office Insee.