He added that the decrease in figures was the result of five years of successful Socialist rule.
“The economy did not start growing and the unemployment rate did not start falling the second Mr Macron stepped into the Elysée palace.
“He cannot take credit for the country’s improved economic outlook and jobs market because he hasn’t been in power long enough.
“It is the reforms implemented by the Socialist government over the course of François Hollande’s five-year term that are behind the recent boost in jobs and growth – the reforms simply took some time to bear fruit,” Mr Faure told the French parliamentary channel LCP.
The hardline left-winger also said that the centrist government’s policies were “too right-wing,” and that the country was essentially under conservative rule, despite Mr Macron’s repeated claim throughout his presidential campaign that he was “neither left nor right”.
“The real winners of the presidential election are former right-wing presidential hopefuls Alain Juppé and François Fillon, because Mr Macron’s social and economic policies are more or less identical to theirs. But at the end of the day, the result is the same: we have a government which is implementing a reform agenda that will deepen social and economic inequalities,” he said.
Mr Faure also accused the 39-year-old president of turning France into Margaret Thatcher’s Britain.
He said: “Mr Macron’s reform agenda is eerily similar to Mrs Thatcher’s. His policies target the poor and favour the wealthy, with the hope that – by some miracle – some of the wealth will eventually trickle down from the rich to the poor.”
Mr Macron was recently labelled “the president of the rich” by his critics after he made good on a campaign pledge to remove France’s wealth tax – a tax Mr Macron says has driven “thousands” of millionaires abroad.
The government is set to replace the controversial tax with a levy targeting only real estate.