While the French job market has resisted the crisis somewhat better than those of other large countries, structural imbalances threaten the country’s social-protection system. The first among these is the low level of participation in the workforce, which has eroded the country’s prosperity over the past two decades. Moreover, the trends modeled by the McKinsey Global Institute raise the concern that this job market deterioration can be expected to continue, particularly due to the widening gap between the demand and the supply of skills—a gap quantified in the French employment report. By 2020, two things are likely to be lacking: 2.2 million high-school and university graduates to fill the jobs employers will have on offer, and 2.3 million low-skilled jobs for those who do not have a high-school diploma. This skills gap must be narrowed as a matter of utmost urgency in order to tackle the employment question at its roots.