France's unemployment rate is actually about 8.9 percent rather than the 8.2 percent rate provisionally reported by the government for April according to the OFCE, an independent French economic think tank.
The OFCE's estimate will throw more fuel on a controversy already blazing over the jobless data due to differing methods of calculating the figures under International Labour Organisation norms.
European Union statistics office Eurostat takes into account a labour force survey which national statistics institute INSEE says may not be reliable. Eurostat provisionally estimated the French jobless rate was 8.6 percent in April, one of the highest in the eurozone.