13% of French live in poverty

MORE than 7.8m French live below the national poverty threshold of €949 per month, government statistics reveal.

A new report by statistics agency Insee shows that the number of people living below the poverty line fell to 7.8m in 2008, from 8m in 2007.

However the agency said this was largely the result of a change in criteria for measuring poverty and that the number of poor in France was largely the same.

Half of those below the poverty line live on less than €773 a month.

The poverty line is fixed at 60 per cent of the median average wage of France, the wage which one half of the country earns above and the other below, which in 2008 was €19,000.

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