Why does France’s employment rate remain much lower than Germany’s?

Despite the reforms implemented in France (vocational training, apprenticeships, redundancy procedures, reduction in corporate social contributions and production taxes, etc.), France’s employment rate remains much lower than Germany’s. What then can still be reformed to raise France’s employment rate? We therefore look for the likely causes of a low employment rate among: Low skills; An e xcessively high level of wages or low wages; Taxes that penalise companies; Low active labour market spending (training, etc.); A high proportion of temporary employment contracts; Excessive employment protection (for collective redundancies); Overly generous unemployment benefit rules; A low retirement age. All the above explanations of a low employment rate seem to be valid except for : The level of low wages; Unemployment benefit rules.