On Monday François Hollande, French president, proclaimed an economic and social emergency (‘un état d’urgence économique et social’) and the creation of 500,000 fake jobs is the main item of a number of measures that he announced to business and trade union leaders. With a presidential election due in 15 months, Hollande has said in the past that he would not seek reelection if unemployment is higher than when he took office in May 2012 — the harmonised jobless rate was at 9.7% in Q2 2012 and last November it was at 10.1%.