What are France's figures?

According to Eurostat, the French youth unemployment rate in 2016 was indeed 24.6 per cent, or around one in four. And this was around double the UK rate of 13 per cent.

But the EU statistics agency also reports that the French youth unemployment ratio in that year was just 9.1 per cent, not so dramatically different from the UK ratio of 7.6 per cent.

So, depending on which metric one uses, the French youth joblessness situation is either twice as bad as the UK’s, or roughly the same.

“One reason France looks worse on youth unemployment rates is that it has a much higher post-compulsory education participation rate than the UK, and that’s why the difference is much less when we compare the unemployment ratios than when we look at unemployment rates,” explains Nigel Meager, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.

This is borne out by 2016 OECD data on education participation rates. This finds that the number of French 18 year olds in tertiary education is 38 per cent, rising to 47 per cent for 20 year olds. For British 18 year olds the comparable figures are 21 per cent rising to 40 per cent for 20 year olds.