"But economic competitiveness cannot exist if there is not at the same time more solidarity and less job insecurity," Ayrault said, noting that poverty affected 12.9 percent of the population in 2002 and rose to 14.1 percent in 2010. He announced a range of measures to help the poor in France, including increased welfare benefits, extra housing aid and youth employment schemes.
An opinion poll published last week said that nearly one in two French people consider themselves poor or fear they soon will be. Eleven percent of respondents said they felt poor and 37 percent said they felt they were becoming poor, according to the poll by the CSA agency for business daily Les Echos.
Salaried employees, manual labourers and independent workers felt the most exposed to poverty, while executives and professionals felt the least exposed. The French economy, the eurozone's second biggest, has essentially marked time since the end of last year. It grew by 0.2 percent in the third quarter of this year after a 0.1-percent contraction in the second. The government has forecast growth of 0.8 percent for 2013, but the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has predicted an increase as low as 0.3 percent and the International Monetary Fund just 0.4 percent.