Euro job crisis undermines Macron boast

the president of France faced a backlash last night after he claimed the euro has supported the region’s prosperity.

In a letter to newspapers on the Continent, emmanuel Macron hailed the single currency, despite years of high unemployment and economic woe. he said: ‘how would we resist the crises of financial capitalism without the euro, a force for the entire eU?’

Macron, who has suffered 16 weeks of protests, also attacked Brexit, saying it has left europe facing its biggest crisis since the Second World War.

But his comments were criticised amid fears the eurozone is heading back into recession having failed to recover from the debt crisis that has stalked it for a decade.

Unemployment in the single currency bloc is 7.8pc, nearly double the UK’s 4pc, and youth unemployment is 16.5pc. Nearly four in ten Greeks and a third of Spaniards and Italians under 25 who want a job cannot find work. In France, youth unemployment is 20.1pc while the overall rate is 8.8pc.

tory MP and former Cabinet minister Owen Paterson said: ‘Do the young unemployed in Greece or Spain see the euro as a tool to “resist the crises of financial capitalism”?’

Fellow Brexiteer John Longworth, former head of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: ‘how can he claim that the euro helps resist financial crises when the region is riddled with slow growth, high unemployment, unstable banks, debt and crushing regulation? It would be laughable if it were not so tragic.’

Italy is back in recession while factory output across the eurozone is falling for the first time in six years, with Germany suffering its biggest decline since 2012.

Macron’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, has warned the slump in Italy could be devastating. and Corrado alberto, head of turin’s entrepreneurs association, said: ‘those who talk about stagnation are way too optimistic, we are facing a real recession.’

Former Greek finance minister Yanis varoufakis has called for his country to be ready to ditch the euro after suffering ‘the biggest peacetime economic catastrophe since the Great Depression’.

research group IhS Markit’s index of activity in the eurozone, where 50 is the cut- off between growth and decline, rose from 51 in January to 51.9 in February.