, however, unemployment is almost 9%, yet 46% of employers in industry report recruitment dif- ficulties, according to the French statistics agency Insee. That's the highest level in almost 20 years. Even when unemployment was at 7.2%, in 2008, French manufacturers found it easier to hire than today

d becoming rather ordinary." Seventy percent of the French do not think it is important for couples living together to get married, according to an Insee poll in 2012. Fewer than four marriages for every 1,000 citizens were performed in France in 2011, compared with nearly eight in 1970. The civil so