It's incredibly bad. ~40% after first semester. 60%+ will fail the first year. That first year is basically a post high-school buffer. Netherlands have a one year gap for kids to cool off and find what motivates them. France should really adopt that.
But that too is a small minority. To be exact, in 2013, 9% of all first year students in tertiary education took a gap year. About 1/3rd of them traveled during that time, most of the rest had a job. And although the data doesn't explicitly say, it does seem like that includes those work for a few months between the end of the school year of high school (in May/June) and the start of the year at university, in September/October or in January, depending on the specifics. I'm not claiming they included everyone with a summer job, just that what is claimed to be a 'gap year' isn't really in many cases, but more a 'I have a few months time and I need to pay for my studies, let's make some money'. A far cry from the GP's suggestion that there is some formal structure to go soul searching or whatever.
