AFP - French unemployment rose sharply in the fourth quarter of 2009 to reach a rate of 9.6 percent, wiping out the country's gains on the jobless front over the past decade, official figures showed on Thursday.

"The unemployment rate has climbed sharply and is now at the level of 1999," said the INSEE state statistical agency.

More than 2.7 million people are unemployed in France, with men harder hit than women in the global downturn that has mostly destroyed industrial jobs.

The jobless rate stood at 9.1 percent in the third quarter of last year.

France emerged from a year-long recession last year, but the jobless rate has continued to rise and the country is on track to cross the 10 percent mark this year.

INSEE put the unemployment rate in France including the overseas departments at 10 percent for the fourth quarter of 2009 after initially forecasting that the threshold would be reached only in June 2010.

French budget minister Eric Woerth said on Wednesday that the jobs outlook would begin to improve in the second quarter of 2010, saying "it takes a long time to reverse these trends."

"We believe that starting in the second quarter of this year, we will begin to see the unemployment rate drop -- I hope, touch on wood, but I have no crystal ball," Woerth told France Inter radio.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's government is banking on growth of 1.2 to 1.4 percent for this year.

France needs to hit a growth rate of at least 1.3 percent to see job creation, the government has said.