The French oyster farming industry relies almost exclusively on juveniles collected from the natural environment; the supply of spat produced by hatcheries is low, about 10% of the industry's requirements. Development through selective breeding of oyster stocks which are better suited for aquaculture purposes, is likely to reverse this tendency since only hatcheries will be able to supply such animals. Scallop farming, which at present is poorly developed in France, relies exclusively on hatchery produced spat. Although hatchery technology is constantly being improved, significant production problems remain which must be solved before hatcheries become a major supplier of juveniles for the industry. This paper describes the present state of hatchery technology in France based on experimental results obtained with the great scallop Pecten maximus and the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas, over the past ten years. Compared to the great scallop, the Pacific oyster has higher D larva yields (60% for C. gigas vs. 30% for P. maximus) and a faster larval growth rate (10 mu m.d(-1) for C. gigas vs. 5 mu m.d(-1) for P. maximus). However, Pacific oysters have a greater heterogeneity during larval development and higher mortality rates (40% far C. gigas vs. 25% for P. maximus) which produce lower overall yields of pediveliger larvae ready-to-set for Pacific oysters (15%) compared to the great scallop (30%). Development of continuous larval and post-larval culture methods along with development of continuous phytoplankton technology offers one of the most promising methods to improve molluscan hatchery techniques.