STUDY Youth Unemployment and Youth Employment Policy Lessons from France FLORENCE LEFRESNE November 2012  In France, severe youth unemployment has become a quasi-structural phenomenon. The high concentration of young people in insecure jobs increases their sensitivity to the crisis. Labour market segmentation blocks youth integration and leads to a polarisation, with high turnover and less-skilled jobs.  The sharp rise in the proportion of young graduates has done little to protect from job demotion. Young women, who do better in school and have more qualifications than men, do less well on the labour market. The concept of flexibility is seen as mak­ing it possible to do away with the inequality between generations weighed down by labour market segmentation. Its effectiveness, however, is highly questionable.  The role of public policy towards youth professional integration consists in special work contracts that apply to the market or non-market sector. State-subsidised jobs help young people in difficulties, but generally do not assist in promoting a real up­wardly mobile career path and destabilise work contract standards. The main chal­lenge for employment policy is to create and promote a new professional status for the entire body of active people based on secure professional pathways.