France tightens control over unemployment benefits

France is raising the hurdles for claiming unemployment benefits and wants to monitor jobseekers' efforts more closely.

There will be 25% more verifications on whether the unemployed are actually making sufficient efforts to find a new job, Labour Minister Elisabeth Borne told broadcasters RTL on Wednesday.

Penalties would include the cancellation of the benefits for one month in the case of a single failure, and permanently in the case of repeated violations.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced the previous day that to receive unemployment benefits, people must have worked for six months in the past two years, instead of the previous four months.

Unemployed people who do not make sufficient efforts to find a new job will have their benefits cancelled, the president stressed.

The employment agency will also take another look at the hundreds of thousands of vacancies for which no one has applied in recent weeks.

The unemployment rate in France has been stable at 8%.