FRENCH state bank Credit Lyonnais breathed new life into a debate over promoting jobs through cutting the working week when it unveiled plans yesterday for staff to work less hours for the same pay.

With more than three million people out of work and an unemployment rate worse than that of any of its poorer European partners, the jobs issue is a political sore point in France.

Credit Lyonnais said it was parting with 50 years of banking tradition by trying out a six day week instead of five at around a quarter of its branches.

In doing so, it plans to cut the working week for staff to 37 hours over four days instead of 39 over five days with no cut in pay. This would assure longer opening hours by introducing rolling schedules.

Despite promising 150 new full time jobs and predicting a rise in banking income as a result, the bank also confirmed plans to lop up to 5,400 off its total French staffs of a little more than 36,800 by the end of 1998.

The proposal to trim the working week, albeit for only some staff during a 30 month trial period, may well be music to the ears of a government whose pleas for shorter hours seem to generate trepidation among French business leaders.

The number of added jobs pales into insignificance beside the number to be axed. The 5,000 plus jobs to be shed follow another 3,000 posts lost over the last two years from a total workforce of some 59,000 worldwide at Credit Lyonnais.

Unemployment has risen from 518,000 at the start of 1970 to around three million at the end of 1995, according to national statistics office INSEE.

In those 25 years, the private sector generated only 61,000 jobs net, while the state sector created 1.75 million.

In Germany, where labour costs are also frequently looked on as punitive, work hours are central to attempts to create jobs, with the focus there on stopping overtime and turning the extra hours into jobs.