The sharp rise in corporate failures in France in the period 2008-2010 was preceded by a surge in business start-ups in 2003 and 2004. Therefore, to be able to identify the impact of the 2008 economic and financial crisis we have to dissociate the bankruptcies that actually resulted from the crisis from those mechanically stemming from business demography, since we know that many businesses fold in the first few years of their existence. This study was conducted on a sample of businesses started up between 1st January 2000 and 31st December 2007. The sample was extracted from the database of the Banque de France's Companies Directorate. Due to the absence of data on businesses started up before 2000, the study was restricted to companies that were still young, but the period covered is long enough to include the 2003-2004 period when business start-ups accelerated. The originality of the study lies both in the sample size and in the richness of the data used. The statistical analysis covers the period between the date the company was founded and its first failure. The impact of the crisis is estimated using a flexible duration model stratified according to the date of creation of the company. The model accounts for the effects of the age of the company, its industry, its size, and the sequence of its payment incidents on trade bills. More specifically, we examine the failure rates in four sectors: retail trade, transport, manufacturing and construction. The proportion of failures ascribable to the crisis varies sharply from one sector to the next. Across all cohorts, it was 27% in retail, 35% in transport, 43% in manufacturing and 46% in construction. Younger companies, particularly those started up in 2006 and 2007, were those most affected by the crisis.