Reducing social exclusion and poverty is an important objective for all French governments. The current policy approach involves a large number of measures tailored to different circumstances, and conventionally measured poverty is in fact lower than in most other countries, though still higher than can be easily accepted. Some policies have unwanted side effects on labour market performance, and their cost-effectiveness could be improved to obtain better outcomes with the same resources. Concentrations of poverty and social exclusion in certain geographic areas and among certain groups of the population provide one of the most difficult challenges, for which contributions from education, labour market, housing, urban planning and anti-discrimination policies, as well as from the social services, are necessary.