The French Ministry for Social Affairs, Labor and Solidarity Deploys Business Objects to Help French Youth Find Employment.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The French Ministry for Social Affairs, Labor and Solidarity has deployed solutions from Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ); (Euronext Paris ISIN code FR0004026250 - BOB), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, to help more than 1.3 million young people across France secure employment. The organization has introduced an initiative called 'Parcours 3', a tool based on Business Objects solutions, that helps facilitate the creation of employment opportunities at local, regional and national levels.

"Based on technologies from Business Objects, the 'Parcours 3' information system is a monitoring and management tool for 6,500 users. It provides day-to-day help for counselors in the Local Missions whose job is to welcome and support young people in difficulty," said Alain de Lorgeril of the IT Mission at the employment and vocational training division of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labor and Solidarity. "It also provides the government, the local and regional councils and national authorities with a national and regional observatory of the situation of young people and a direct means of gauging the efficiency of public policies for employment."

"Parcours 3" is the management tool used day-to-day by counselors who welcome and monitor young people aged 16 to 25 at the Local Missions. The counselors are able to access a range of dashboards built using Business Objects solutions. These solutions contribute directly to making their daily work more efficient, and allow them to keep track of young workers, their level of training, initiatives to find employment, accommodation, and means of transport. Business Objects solutions also help the counselors compare the information with local and national data, and create alerts to enable pre-emptive measures when risks of emergency situations are identified.

The directors of Local Missions will also be able to use Business Objects solutions as part of their management strategy to promote their organizations when developing partnerships. This is especially valuable as they are co-financed by the French government, the European Union, the Regional Councils and the municipalities, and are required to be fully transparent about their activities. Via an extranet powered by Business Objects, the government will have access to aggregated, global, and updated information. They will be able to evaluate more precisely the impact of different regional and national social integration schemes with a view to further development.

About the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labor and Solidarity

The Ministry's Labor sector employs 11,000 people in four main organizations: DAGEMO, responsible for general administration and the modernization of services; DRT, responsible for labor relations; DARES, responsible for research, surveys and statistics; and DGEFP, responsible for employment and vocational training.

The DGEFP employs 300 civil servants devoted to the creation of large-scale projects for employment and vocational training. In 2004 the organization's budget totalled 31.6 billion euros. It also supervises the French National Employment Agency (ANPE), and the National Association for Adult Vocational Training (AFPA). For its labor-related activities the ministry also has 26 regional divisions (DRTEFP) and 96 sub-divisions working at the department level (DDTEFP).

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI) software company. Business intelligence enables organizations to track, understand and manage enterprise performance. The company's solutions leverage the information that is stored in an array of corporate databases, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Popular uses of BI include enterprise reporting, management dashboards and scorecards, customer intelligence applications, financial reporting, and both customer and partner extranets. These solutions enable companies to gain visibility into their business, acquire and retain profitable customers, reduce costs, optimize the supply chain, increase productivity, and improve financial performance.

In December 2003, Business Objects completed the acquisition of Crystal Decisions, the leader in enterprise reporting. The combined product line includes software for reporting, query and analysis, performance management, analytic applications, and data integration. In addition, Business Objects offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.

Business Objects has more than 24,000 customers in over 80 countries. The company's stock is traded under the ticker symbols NASDAQ: BOBJ and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB). It is included in the SBF 120 and IT CAC 50 French stock market indexes. Business Objects can be reached at 408-953-6000 and http://www.businessobjects.com/.

Business Objects, the Business Objects logo, Crystal Reports, and Crystal Enterprise are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects SA or its affiliated companies in the United States and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.