NEW YORK TIMES: …More than a decade after it was introduced, the 35-hour workweek still projects an image of France as being one of the most laid-back places in the world to work. In most of the rest of the eurozone, the 40-hour workweek is standard.
But in reality, France’s 35-hour week has become largely symbolic, as employees across the country pull longer hours and work more intensely, with productivity per hour about 13 percent higher than the eurozone average. And a welter of loopholes lets many French employers outmaneuver the law…
Now, a fight has broken out within President François Hollande’s Socialist government over whether to officially end the nominal 35-hour workweek as a way to overcome France’s economic malaise… (more)
