International Business

French Jobless Rate Leaps to Postwar Record: France’s jobless rate jumped to 12% in October, the government said, underlining the fragility of the economy as it hauls itself out of recession. The unemployment rate’s rise to 12%, which had not been expected before the end of the year, left France at the bottom of the class among the Group of Seven nations. Economists were quick to pin the blame for the climb in unemployment on the tough monetary policy of Prime Minister Edouard Balladur’s 8-month-old conservative government.