Yes. You even get a better replacement rate when you create a company than when you're unemployed and looking for work. If you held salaried work for long enough before, it will last for two whole years.

We often joke in France that the unemployment agency is the #1 startup investor in the country

No idea how it worked in detail (they were mainly acquaintances I met at meetups/co-working spaces). It just seemed like a right of passage - virtually everyone I met had bootstrapped their 2-5 person teams with guys & gals that were living off their unemployment allowances for a year (and so were fine taking equity and no salary for a while).