The first part of the article is devoted to the way changes in the legal obligations of employers in France have been a crucial spur to training investment over the last two decades, and then in the next section recent managerial discourse on training is considered. The next part tempers the discussion of managerial discourse with an examination of the evidence available on the reality of training policy implementation, on actual practices in firms. Recent comparative research, as well as case studies and statistics, is brought into the picture.