France and Germany joined hands on Tuesday to confront a jobs crisis blighting the lives of millions of young people in the eurozone, saying that the key to work lies with small businesses, reports GlobalPost.
"Give youth a chance," declared German Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen at a conference in Paris preparing the way for a joint drive in a month's time to open doors for young people.
Opening the conference, French President Francois Hollande called for an "offensive".
Unemployment among young people is a critical problem in many countries in the eurozone, particularly those enacting draconian reforms to restructure their economies and reduce debt.
In some of these countries the unemployment rate among young people exceeds 50 percent.
"We have to act immediately, six million youths are (officially) unemployed in Europe," Hollande said, adding that "nearly 14 million are without work, not studying and are not apprentices."
He said that "European institutions, the heads of state and government, France and Germany" agree that an action plan has to be implemented to combat high unemployment, adding that it must be done on a war-footing.
French Labour Minister Michel Sapin said the blueprint -- dubbed the New Deal by the media in reference to US president Franklin D. Roosevelt's Great Depression recovery plan -- would target small- and medium-sized businesses to create jobs.
Read more of this AFP report published by GlobalPost.