There are now 155,266 French émigrés aged 18 to 25, according to a report in the Le Figaro newspaper.
A sampling survey carried out in January by the Deloitte and Ifop firms found that 27 percent of young French people who obtained a university degree in the past three years saw their professional future outside France — up from 13 percent last year.
"With an unemployment rate reaching 25 percent (in their age group), young people naturally want to go abroad to avoid the bad start they would feel for several years" of their working lives, a professor at the Sciences-Po university in Paris, Stephane Carcillo, told the daily.
Overall French unemployment tops 10 percent and the country has seen thousands laid off in recent months amid a deep plunge in business confidence.
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