Hollande: Job creation remains sole priority in 2014

In his second New Year's address, French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday said decreasing the country's alarming number of jobseekers will remain his sole priority next year. "I have only one priority, one objective, one commitment, it is the job creation," he addressed the 65 million population. A year after his promise to reverse the trend in unemployment before the end of 2013, Hollande admitted that the unemployment stood at high level with 3.293 millions registered jobseekers at the end of November, up 0.5 percent from the previous month. Critics said the fresh figures mirrored the Socialists' fruitless policy that failed to fix the economic troubles of the 2-trillion-euro economy. Hollande said jobless trend began decreasing and "results are slow to come but they are here." Looking to 2014, the president stressed the need of "the mobilization of all forces to gain the battle (against the unemployment)." He proposed a fresh device to inject new breathe in the sluggish domestic job market "based on simple principle, less labor costs, fewer constraints on their activities and, in return, more recruitments and more social dialogue." As the budget deficit of the eurozone's main powerhouse which is still above the European safe line, Hollande promised more spending cut next year to lower the double digit budget gap by 0.5 percentage points to 3.6 percent of its national output, or 82.57 billion euros (113.76 billion U.S. dollars). "We need to save money wherever they are possible... in order to decrease taxes... which became too heavy. I will take myself, the responsibility and the monitoring of this savings program throughout the mandate," he pledged. With promises to bring voters work and wealth, Hollande snatched a place at the Elysee Palace in 2012, becoming the second Socialist president, after Francois Mitterrand, who served from 1981 until 1995. However, for him, the honeymoon was short as France is now haunted by deteriorating economic climate and high joblessness. According to polls, Hollande's approval ratings have tumbled since he took power from above 60 percent to as low as 25 percent, the fastest drop of any recent president.