French Jobs Data `Won't Be Good' for Many Months

By Tara Patel

Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- French jobs data ``won't be good'' for many months because of the financial crisis, Labor Minister Xavier Bertrand said.

``I am expecting that employment statistics won't be good for months and months,'' Bertrand said today in an interview on France2 television. Jobs and consumer spending will be affected, he said.

``It will take days and weeks to restore confidence,'' he said. ``Banks are not lending to each other. We want to say to them that the government will intervene if necessary. There will be a guarantee from states.''


Bertrand was speaking before a meeting in Paris of European leaders who may forge new measures to combat the credit freeze after their failure to act a week ago contributed to the worst sell-off in the region's stocks in two decades.

French labor rules on working on Sundays will be modified to make it legal and a personal choice, he said.

``We will change the rules,'' he said. ``When people do work on Sundays it must be on a voluntary basis.''

France will introduce before the end of the year a law allowing employees to work on Sundays for higher pay, Le Journal du Dimanche reported, citing an interview with government spokesman Luc Chatel.

The proposal would allow department stores such as Galeries Lafayette in Paris to open on Sundays, the newspaper reported. This would boost economic activity during a slowdown and simplify labor law, which has 180 exemptions to the ban on Sunday work, the newspaper cited Chatel as saying.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tara Patel in Paris tpatel2@bloomberg.net