Jun
23
2008
Getting the French to Work was a Radio 4 programme today interviewing French Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde, discussing the economic reforms which Sarkozy is currently undertaking, one of them being extending the 35 hour week. As you can imagine, it’s a heated subject among the French who value their family time and don’t see why they should work longer hours, with many of them comfortable in a civil service job offering good benefits and pensions.
However, Sarkozy wants to boost the French economy, and one of the ways he’s doing this is to give businesses the option of extending the working week. France has one of the lowest working hours in Europe and with an ageing population (as with many countries), the state benefits have to be paid one way or another. Many workers take long weekends, especially when a public holiday falls on a week day (which I’ve mentioned in a previous post) which is a problem for many businesses.
The other side of the coin however is that the French value family time and aren’t driven by money as much as other nations, such as the British and Americans (I don’t think the ‘work hard play hard’ mentality exists much in France, which isn’t a bad thing in my mind). Also many self employed people in France end up working very long hours to keep their business going because of the high amount of taxes they have to pay, which doesn’t encourage people to set up their own businesses.
I’m going to be keeping an interest in this debate to see how successful Sarkozy is in shaking up the French economy!
You can listen to the interview with Christine Lagarde again on the BBC website, although I’m not sure how long it’ll be online for.
