Why don't the French want to work?
 

Or do they? It looks like this question will never be settled.

http://reneekaplan.carnets.liberatio...essed-fantasy/

My French son saw this last week and laughed - I said it could not be true - he said it was - makes sense to me but how to enforce?

Bravo to the French I say - more vacations, etc - too bad they can sustain this largess in today's more and more internationally competitive world.

Thanks for posting.

"Or do they?"

So why does all France-to-Britain migration happen among people who want to work? While almost all Britain-to-France migration happens among people who've done as much working for someone else as they want?

Whatever quaint fantasies about French "work/life balance" American francophiles want to invent, France's's economy is going to hell in a handbasket and the single French invention of the 20th century that's done most for ambitious young Frenchpeople is the Eurostar to London.

Where we don't invent fatuous "agreements" to turn off Outlook at 6 pm. And don't invent non-existent conspiracies among foreigners to diss us.

Haven't you ever heard of Corrine Maier?

Here's an interview she did for NY Magazine:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people...igencer/12024/

"The French are coming!
The French are coming!

Said Flanner Revere!

I myself would rather have August off than own a Caddy. I wouldn't even take a Caddy as a gift. Oh, wai! I suppose I could sell it and pay for my August holiday.

Flanneruk,

I guess you one of the plotters, which is to be expected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/op...st-france.html

And for a direct comparison:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...into-the-sand/

Flanner, the young French are going everywhere, and Britain is not at the top of their list -- Canada, the US, Germany, Australia, the Middle East, etc.

Normally it is considered to be proof that a country is dynamic when the young people go abroad to get some professional experience. The vast majority come back after 1, 2, 5, 10 years, and that is fantastic.

I have not read very much about where the dynamic young Brits are going, but I'm sure you must know.

LOL, an American, a Brit and a Frenchman in a bar trying to understand each other and thinking the only difference between them is a language barrier.

There is a vast cultural difference between them as well and that is why it is very hard for them to understand each other.

An American or a Brit or a Frenchman cannot really make any intelligent comments about either of the others without having a very good understanding of the other one's culture.

I have no difficulty understanding why a French union would push for such a thing or why an American would see it as crazy. The Brit would just say it was stupid out of envy.

I have not read very much about where the dynamic young Brits are going, but I'm sure you must know.>

U S of A of course!

I think some of you have forgotten what it means to be young. The ambitious youth -- from no matter what country -- have always sought their fortunes on other shores. Many of them will be back. Others will travel back and forth, always. That's today's world.

<b>U S of A of course!</b>

Right! That's because they have no language skills.

I assume that those fantasizing about the correlation between working long hours and having a solid economy never bother to look at OECD statistics or elsewhere:

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2009/05/art1full.pdf

You can skip the long explanatory texts and go to the last page.
Among the "Western" economies compared, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands work the fewest hours. France is in the middle range.

Paid vacation leave and paid public holidays combined, I'll be away from the office for 43 days in 2014 (not counting Saturdays and Sundays which are off anyway) - like every other employee in Bavaria. Which translates to almost 9 weeks off.

Blimey, surely we all know about "presentee-ism" today. One of the things Germans reproach the Brits for is not actually working all that intensively during the extensive hours so many people proudly report for themselves. Why do you think there aren't that many Germans on this message-board :)?

LOL - touché

When I ran a French plant I had to introduce the concept of a weekly working lunch (properly catered of course) as that won us enough time to find out what problems the staff had. The benefits, especially on safety were fantastic. Until they then they worked very hard at what they had to do, such concepts as team work were just off the scale.

Still Americans, Brits and Germans all have their quirks. :-)