PARIS (AFP) - The number of young French adults going abroad has swelled 14 per cent in the past four years, many of them seeking better opportunities as economic malaise grips their nation, according to government figures picked up by the newspaper Le Figaro.

There are now 155,266 French emigres aged 18 to 25, the newspaper said.

A sampling survey carried out in January by the Deloitte and Ifop firms found that 27 per cent of young French people who obtained a university degree in the past three years saw their professional future outside France - up from 13 per cent last year.

"With an unemployment rate reaching 25 per cent (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 per cent and the country has seen thousands laid off in recent months amid a deep plunge in business confidence.