The jobless rate in France was stable at 9.7 percent during the second quarter of 2014 compared to the previous one, national statistics agency Insee said on Thursday.

A total of 2.784 million people were without work over the period, marking an annual decrease of 0.2 percentage points.

With overseas provinces taken into account, the quarterly French jobless rate was 10.2 percent, up from 10.1 percent recorded during January to March.

In the second quarter, the unemployment rate was stable at 10 percent for men and grew slightly to 9.5 percent for women.

Under fire for failing to bring down alarming joblessness by the end of 2013, the French government proposed a 30 billion euros (39.39 billion U.S. dollar) cut in labor charges to encourage local companies to hire.

It also announced the creation of 45,000 additional "jobs for the future," aimed at recruiting poorly-qualified young workers from disadvantaged suburbs and rural areas. Such a move would bring the total number of state-sponsored posts to 95,000 jobs this year. (1 euro = 1.30 U.S. dollar) Endit

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