PARIS, Feb 2 (Reuters) – French unemployment jumped by around 45,000 in December, Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said on Monday and she warned that the economy’s troubles would continue into the first quarter of the year.

The rise in the jobless data, which will be released officially later on Monday, is smaller than the 64,000 increase in November which was the sharpest rise since at least 1993.

“It’s around 45,000,” Lagarde told France 2 Television in an interview.

Recent data has shown the economy is shrinking sharply but it has also provided some hope that the pace of the contraction has slowed.

Consumer and business morale and private sector activity improved slightly in January, reports showed last week.

Nevertheless, economists are expecting a contraction of 0.6 percent in the first quarter of this year after a decline of 0.9 percent in the last three months of 2008, which would put the economy into recession.

The government’s official forecast is for growth of 0.2 to 0.5 percent but Lagarde has acknowledged that this will have to be revised down and on Monday she repeated that data from the end of last year would be grim.

“We know the fourth quarter will be bad,” Lagarde said. “We will have a big minus. The first quarter won’t be good either.”

The monthly jobless data is not presented in line with the widely recognised International Labour Office model. But it is politically significant in France and is the number most frequently mentioned by politicians and the local media.

The jobless rate in France according to data from the European Union statistics office rose to 7.9 percent in November. The European Commission is expecting the jobless rate, a lagging economic indicator, to soar to 9.8 percent in 2009 and 10.6 percent in 2010.

President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a 26 billion euro package last year to stimulate the economy, mostly through investment.

But unions and opposition politicians have complained that the measures do not help consumers. Between one and two million strikers took to the streets on Jan. 29 to protest the governments efforts to cushion the slowing economy.

The government has promised to stand firm. Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a newspaper interview on Monday, there were no plans to change economic policies or introduce measures to boost spending despite the strike.

Fillon and a selection of ministers will travel to Lyon on Monday to explain the stimulus plan.

Lagarde will also meet officials from a Ford Motor Co factory in western France which will be acquired by a German industrial group, saving 1,600 jobs. (Writing by James Mackenzie and Anna Willard)