French cabinet split over jobless

The French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, speaking amid signs of a rift in his cabinet, cautioned that it would not be easy to reach an agreement on how to keep a campaign promise to create jobs.

The newspaper Le Monde said that the employment minister Martine Aubry, who advocates legislation to shorten the working week from 39 to 35 hours, was at loggerheads with the finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who thinks that shortening the week without lowering wages would kill jobs and supports more flexible means to bring down the jobless rate of 12.5 per cent.

- Reuters