France enjoys the lazy, hazy days of May.

It feels like an August weekend in Paris today. The sun is blazing, as it has for the past week. The streets are largely empty except for tourists. Much of France is enjoying a fifth successive day off work.

President Sarkozy may preach the doctrine of "working more to earn more", but his country has seized the chance to enjoy what the headline in le Parisien newspaper called "Five days of happiness".  The long spring break has been made possible by the lucky timing of two public holidays for the nation that already enjoys more vacation days than any other. Last Thursday, May 8, was the holiday marking victory in World War Two and today is Pentecost (Whitsun in Britain). Friday was supposed to be a working day but schools in the Paris area and many other regions stayed shut  -- so people took the day off, enjoying what is known as le pont, or bridge.

Many even managed nearly 10 days because there was another unofficial pont on Friday May 2, after the May Day holiday fell on a Thursday. Half of France either took that Friday or last Friday or both, according to a poll.

Each unofficial day off costs the economy about 1.8 billion euros, according to the experts. If France worked as much as the British, they would add about one percent to gross domestic product, they say. Such figures produce a shrug. Who would want to live like the British? Why not enjoy life and take off for the countryside or the coast, especially when the weather is as glorious as it has been in northern France for the past week?

Today is an odd case because the Pentecost holiday was officially cancelled for three years and then re-instated last month by Sarkozy. After thousands of elderly people died in a summer heat wave in 2003, President Chirac's government proclaimed Whitsun Monday a working day in the name of "national solidarity". France were supposed to toil without additional pay and the tax levied would go to financing care for the elderly. The idea did not work. People took the day off anyway. Bull-fighting fans said the whole thing was a plot against the Feria at Nîmes, the traditional corrida weekend in the southern city. Under a new scheme, people are expected to donate an extra seven hours work per year to the cause of the elderly. The SNCF railways solved this by adding two minutes 40 seconds to its staff's working day.

A small minority of employees are at work today because their employers have not yet settled on a way of oganising the extra seven hours. The trade unions are protesting in their name. One union, the CFTC, called today on Whitsun workers to strike against their unfair lot. As I woke (to go to work) the CFTC spokesman was explaining the logic on the radio. "France has the most productive workers in the world. To stay like that, they need to disconnect from the working environment from time to time," he said.

French workers need to produce more per hour to compete because, what with holidays and the 35-hour working week, the country labours less than any other. French employees enjoy 37 days annual leave on top of public holidays, according to a survey last month by Harris Interactive. The Italians are next, with 33. The Germans have 27 and the British 26. The poor Americans report an average of 14 vacation days a year.

I don't want to jump to obvious "Anglo-Saxon" conclusions about France and the impact of working less. But I'd point out that the same Parisien that was thrilled by five days off has today devoted its front page to the shock news that thousands of "new poor" French have been reduced to foraging in supermarket rubbish containers for their daily meals. People across Europe have been hit lately by the sharp rise in the cost of living but I get the feeling that France is hurting a little more than most places.   

And I almost forgot. Thousands of people will not be working on Thursday either. Teachers and civil service unions have called a one-day stoppage to protest against Sarko's cuts to teaching staff and ministry personnel.   

Comments

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

"France get back to work" "The British and the Americans work harder and get less holiday and days off than the French..." I seem to have heard these words before. The Sorbonne students used a little cafe on the Bou Mich called le Source and, resisting wine, I ordered Frankfurters, pommes frites and a glass of milk. "Un pair et un Mendes-France" the waiter yelled. It was 1954.
M-F had told the French to get to bed at night, get up early and work to earn refrigerators etc. like the Americans.
In the army on Fontainebleau a cafe proprietor would be asleep at the bar, wakened occasionally (by me, at 2 a.m.) to order another drink. Suddenly, he was allowed to close at midnight, thanks to M-F.
The question is: Will M. Sarkozy bring in Prohibition?

[dot king]

For the 1st May, the school I work in had "un pont" for the Friday giving a long weekend of 4 days. However, the teaching hours that I would have had on that Friday were taught on the Wednesday afternoon, so in fact the time was just shifted from one half-day to another. This last week, 8th May was a "jour férié", no "pont" followed, Friday was a usual school day, today of course is le lundi de Pentecôte and férié, so 3 days.

PS to the above, dans le privé, me dit-on, on ne fait jamais grêve.

Of course the idea of working le lundi de Pentecôte was what seemed a very strange solution to stop old people from dying in heatwaves which might ot might not occur, and was, at the time the measure was taken, just a usual (if unexpected) government knee-jerk reaction to show they were on the case.

Preventing old people from dying is a laudable goal, can't do anything but declare myself all in favour of it!! : )

[isobel]

I'm in Paris too at the moment and thanks to the wonderful weather and many shops, bars and restaurants being open it is very pleasant. However I don't share the enthusiasm that many, French and British alike have for "bank holidays"/ "jours feries".All too often they've got that dreaded Sunday feel to them with everything being closed. Personally I much prefer to have a holiday when it suits me/ my employer and which also allows me to get things done which I don't have time to do when I'm working.

[Pats]

People who didn't work this friday, or the other one took this day out from their rtt, if they have them, or out of their holiday time, or, like schools, had one day less break, in the Toussaint holidays as far as I am concerned. And we didn't have any choice on the matter, either. And lots of people have annualised worktime anyway.
As for strike, you can't blame them for not wanting to work more for less money, their working hours have been the same for 60 years, and they haven't had a real raise for 20.And the extra hours are paid about half the regular ones.

[Ros]

"Teachers and civil service unions have called a one-day stoppage " - Well, it was just about the only day left to have a strike!
I read the "Parisien" article & here is the link to the video http://videos.leparisien.fr/video/iLyROoafYzau.html - indeed, this situation is very sad but it is all about inflation (pouvoir d'achat)i.e. Sarko's reform which we have been awaiting patiently. My knowledge of economy in general is very limited but I don't really see what this has to do with the few extra days holiday taken by the French! Charles says in a (rather) pompous way "As I woke (to go to work)" - maybe, but I don't think it would have been a real catastophe if he'd have stayed at home - we could have waited until tomorrow to read our Posts!

[azloon]

does anyone in france know what Pentecost is?

what ever happened to laicite?

apparently when it contributes to "un pont,' we won't be too rigid in our interpretation of the concept.

could we offer you the Fourth of July? you might be able to put together a 10 day 'pont.' not too shabby.

so here we have another great french contribution to western culture: holiday 'creep.'

actually, i'm jealous. any country that can contrive to put together a forty day vacation for its citizens can't be all bad, even if it is doomed.

[dot king]

"My knowledge of economy in general is very limited but I don't really see what this has to do with the few extra days holiday taken by the French! Charles says in a (rather) pompous way "As I woke (to go to work)" (Ros)

Ros, I agree with all you say - me too - limited knowledge of the economy, but when there are people in a country like France who need to scavenge around poubelles to find food, then however the economy works on a large scale seems a universe away and somewhat amorphous.

This country has a shrinking work market*, high business taxes and employment costs, high if (we're told) stable unemployment, and the people at the wrong end of the food chain are expected to foot the bill - or at least get the government out of the hole it's in.
*Apart from restaurants, hôtels and building sites, and seasonal agricultural work, fruit-picking etc, the jobs the French, again, we're told, don't want; often staffed by immigrant workers - you know, the ones they're expelling . . .
Transparently blaming the victim. (One of Mrs Thatcher's most virulent ministers wrote a book with that title "Blaming the victim"; displayed surprising humanity IMO - I think it was Keith Joseph, but open to correction - ages since I read it.)

Yes, Charles, a bit "holier than thou" this going to work when you could be watching a nice bullfight. Double pay for working a public holiday?
Perhaps The Times is a bit like an embassy, considered foreign soil?
Nice work if you can get it - I'd do all my teaching hours on a Sunday to get double pay, but no-one sees the logic of that but me. : )

[Ros]

PETER KINGSLEY: Maybe we're not talking about the same place but never mind -it's just to re-adjust memories - I remember "La Source" in the Boul Mich quite differently and this was in 1951 - it was the VERY first "help-yourself" restaurant in the Boulevard. It has now inevitably been replaced by a "Quick" whose back door gives on to the rue Champoillon where the cinemas are and one of them already was!

[Frederic Garzon]

"the nation that already enjoys more vacation days than any other"

As a matter of fact, France has less "jours fériés" than Austria, or Italy... see
http://www.touteleurope.fr/fr/actions/social/emploi-protection-sociale/presentation/comparatif-le-temps-de-travail-dans-l-ue.html

And annual working time of Germany is smaller than France's... http://ftp.iza.org/dp3402.pdf

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1073,46587259&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&p_product_code=KS-QA-08-004
(Table 8. Average actual hours worked per week in all jobs by country and sex, %)

The survey you mention takes into account only "online people" who have answered the survey on expedia.com, which is for people who have time and money to travel...

"35 heures" are only for large corporations, and parts of the public sector... Today is a working day for my (small) company here in Paris (we chose today for giving our 7 hours to the elderly)...

"Lazy France" is a nice cliché (almost a « marronnier » on this blog),
but it is actually not true...

[Thanks Frederic. There are lots of statistics to draw on. I didn't say that France had more jours fériés than other countries, just more days off per year. This has been lately increased by RTT, as reported by the French media when the Harris survey came out last month. Checking on the methodology of the Harris survey, it seems to be a legit online sampling, not a simple response from readers. The back-up poll in Europe was a full-scale traditional exercise. A subject can be a maronnier (old chestnut) and still be true. Do you know of any other country that does ponts like France ?... CB]

[dot king]

PS to my last post, perhaps "blaming the victim" was the subtitle to the book I mention and the title "the cycle of deprivation".

[Robert Marchenoir]

"The SNCF railways solved this by adding two minutes 40 seconds to its staff's working day."

At last, somebody noticed. Alas, he is a British journalist. If there were any indignant headlines in the French media at the time this despicable trick was allowed to pass, I missed them.

In English, I think this is called adding insult to injury.

As for a French translation, is one allowed to publish the words "foutage de gueule" on a Times blog?

[john o'doe]

At my French family get-together in the sunny 9-3 yesterday there was much excitement about the proposal from Brussels to make May 9th a Europe-wide public holiday to mark the founding of the EU. There was also some worry that it could replace and not be added on to the May 8th holiday.
There was also some regret that there are now no more official days off for the rest of the month, just when we were getting used to topping up the tan before the real big summer holidays in July or August.
Jogging alongside the Seine this lunchtime I noticed that many people were dressed for work. It seems that Whit Monday has not yet been reinstated as a day off for everybody.

[Jay Bhattacharjee]

Cher M. Bremner : let me offer (after a longish interval) another Bengali perspective from Delhi on the globe's oldest rivalry.

Your posts are generally so perceptive and elegantly written. However, the old Anglo-Saxon bug surfaces occasionally and you cannot resist a little bit of French-bashing. When you harrumph that "French workers need to produce more per hour to have any hope of competing because, what with holidays and the 35-hour working week, the country labours much less than any other", you really miss the basic issue. May I draw your attention to a scintillating piece by Paul Krugman in your rival journal, the New York Times, in 2005 ? Krugman says basically that it is a matter of social choice - the French have collectively chosen to work less, so that they can have more "family-time" and other socially meaningful activities. I leave you to go through Krugman's article in its entirety. However, there is an indication that you do have a basic idea of what all this is about. After all, you pose the question : "Who would want to live like the British?".

[Thanks, Jay. And you're absolutely right. My point was that France lives better over all by giving a priority to leisure and family time. But it comes at the cost of less output. I don't think it's French-bashing to make that point. I remember Krugman's article, but it's a standard argument, shared by everyone who knows the country. And yes this is an old chestnut of a subject, but it's been a very quiet few days here -- thanks to that great quality of life. CB]

I look forward to your future writings.

[Robert Marchenoir]

"As for strike [...] their working hours [the teachers'] have been the same for 60 years, and they haven't had a real raise for 20." (Pats)

The same? Meaning: not many?

When Ségolène Royal, the socialist candidate for the presidency, suggested that teachers do a 35 hour week as long as they agreed to do them on the school premises, there were howls of outrage from the unions.

Right now, a large portion of the working hours the teachers say they put up are done at home, preparing class and correcting pupils' papers. With nobody to check, obviously.

Maybe the looong hours French teachers say they clock up are not so many after all.

It is funny you fail to make the connection between the low pay you complain about (an opinion about which I would mostly agree), and this privilege ferociously defended by teachers unions.

You cannot have it both ways.

If one understands your sentence correctly, you are also saying that a strike is a legitimate way to take a few days off because of an alleged taxing work schedule.

Were does that come from? Not from the law. Not from the constitution. And certainly not from common decency or morality. Which French teachers claim to instill into children's minds when they blather about "citizenship".

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

In the Herault, Butchers, Bakers, Banks and Barbers (and, for all I know, Brothels) were all closed on Monday, if there was a Saturday market day. In another Comment I mentioned restos open all night in France if near a hospital, PTT, Gendarmerie, railway station, all-night markets like Les Halles (Au Pied de Cochon) or newspaper office, for the toilers of the night. Hence my disapproval of the raised eyebrows at Mr. Bremner going to work on a public holiday, and reminds me of a Liverpudlian reporter telephoning a vicar for a comment about the coal mine closing, the vicar saying, pompously: "You should not be working on the Sabbath, the Lord's day."
"Why you pretentious little man of God," the reporter said. "No doubt you will be reading your morning paper tomorrow, and having bread for breakfast, shovelling coal on your fire and eating fish on a Friday. You can do this because there are men who work on Sundays, and all night, and at weekends, so that you can sit with your feet up on Sunday evening in your cosy little cocoon while weary men sweat with aching muscles just to keep a parasite like you happy."
Many years later, in Fleet Street the same man, now a crime reporter who lived on pub snacks and fried food, was diagnosed by his doctor as having a rare disease not seen much in England. It was called scurvy.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Those were great days, Ros, the rue de la Huchette and Le Vieux Colombier where I drank with (I hope I am not annoying anyone!) Claude Luter in the rue, and Sydney Bechet ("Les Oignons") in the V-C.
and I once heard J-P Sartre harangue Simone de Bouvoir (on terrace of cafe Napoleon) for signing the paper confirming to the Nazis she had not a drop of Jewish blood in her veins, so that she could continue teaching. He said by signing she had collaborated, and she was furious.

[qwerty]

Charles should have someone look into this because I'd really like a definitive answer, all the statistics seem to contradict each other. On "La Matinale" on Canal + this morning, Leon Mercadet told us that:

La France bosse fort:
"Contrairement à ce que pourraient laisser croire certaines déclarations fracassantes de campagne, les français travaillent plus que la moyenne de l'Europe à 27. Avec 38h par semaine, ils effectuent une heure de plus que les anglais et 2h30 de plus que les allemands."

It turns out that the Dutch have the least working hours, followed by other Nordic countries (all rich countries), and that the poorer Eastern and Southern European countries work the most. The French work pretty hard, in fact, and more than the British (??!!). I'm counting on your national pride to challenge this statement.

What I do know is that I've worked on deals with Dutch counterparts where everyone left the office at 5 PM sharp, leaving a closing in the loop...French in fact work pretty late hours and can get annoyed at that sort of laxism. Of course, when working with US counterparts in May or in August, they have the same problem with the French....

[No other country in Europe, or the world, has a 35-hour legal working week like France. That's the basis for the comparison. I'm not criticising it. It allows people to do other things and creates a happier existence for many. The French work hard during working hours. No-one contests that. In the business world, executives work longer hours, like those elsewhere. CB]

[Ian H. Young]

"Do you know of any other country that does ponts like France?" Yes, Mr. Bremner - the 'puente' was an established and beloved tradition in Spain, and I believe it still is. In Colombia, they had another approach when I lived there about 12 to 14 years ago; religious holidays were moved to the nearest Monday, giving no extra days off but at least ensuring a 3-day weekend.

[Colombia is far from the only country to celebrate public holidays on the nearest Monday. Britain and the United States have been doing that for ages. The disadvantage with the French and other system is that no-one gets a holiday when they fall on a Sunday. I know Spain and Latin America have their puentes, but my impression is that France does it in a big way. See the video coming up on next post (midnight Paris time) with comedian Anne Roumanoff joking about unions finding it hard to find a day to strike in May because of all the days off. CB ]

[rocket]

Ros

"maybe, but I don't think it would have been a real catastophe if he'd have stayed at home - we could have waited until tomorrow to read our Posts!"

No we can't wait Ros!

WE NEED OUR POSTS AND WE NEED THEM NOW!

[rocket]

Jay Bhattacharjee

"the French have collectively chosen to work less, so that they can have more "family-time" and other socially meaningful activities."

Then let them stop complaining about the cost of life and lack of money.

Economics 101

[Pats]

Robert, you put words into my mouth, comparing a strike to a holiday, but I won't answer and leave you to your teacher bashing.

[Marguerite.]

Une journee de greve, ce n'est pas une journee de vacances, camarade !

[Maggie]

"France has more days off per year than other countries." (CB)

"the French have collectively chosen to work less, so that they can have more "family-time" and other socially meaningful activities." (Jay)

My theory is that the French have more holidays because they NEED more holidays. In North America we manage to mix a little of everything into each day. People work from nine to five, kids go to school from nine to 3:30 or 4:00. Supper is at six o'clock, which goves people time to do things in the evening.

In Canada, in winter half the adult population (possibly slightly exaggerated) can be found in the curling rink after supper, and half the kids at the skating rink. The swimming pools are open, extra-curricular activities are going on at the school -- band practise, basketball practise, play practise, and so on.

In summer the parks are full of people playing baseball after supper, or throwing frisbees, or people are working in their gardens, or taking swimming lessons, or whatever.

In France it's "boulo, metro, dodo".
Kids go to school from 8 a.m. to 4:30 or 5:00, adults work from eight to six, they don't eat supper till 8 p.m., and after that there isn't time for anything but going to bed, and they're too exhausted to do anything anyway. So they NEED holidays because they would never have fun otherwise.

It seems to me in France it either all work, or all play, whereas we "anglo saxons" mix in a little of everything each day, so we don't need holidays so much in order to relax and enjoy ourselves.

Does anybody agree with this?

[dada]

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=85QWOA0MYJQ

[Fernandez]

Azloon -

"does anyone in france know what Pentecost is? what ever happened to laicite"

I know a lawyer in Brooklyn who jokes that she was only hired because she was Catholic and they needed someone to work Friday afternoons and Jewish holidays. (All the Jews - religious or not - had to be home by sundown.)

My Muslim SGT and I once figured that if we embraced all three Abrahamic religions, we'd get a three day weekend every week.

[Fernandez]

Maggie -

"adults work from eight to six..."

That would mean a 50 hour work week!

What happened to the 35?

[isobel]

Yes Maggie I agree with you - particularly with regard to the amount of time children spend at school.Why is it ok for adults to have a 35 hour week and yet young children are expected to start school at 8 o clock in the morning finish 8 or 9 hours later and then do homework on top?

[Maggie]

Fernandez,

Forgot to mention that they have two hours off for lunch, both at school and at work. And I think with the 35-hour work week, a lot of people get off early Friday afternoon.

But I think it makes more sense to start at nine, especially in the winter, than to have a two-hour lunch.

[azloon]

[My Muslim SGT and I once figured that if we embraced all three Abrahamic religions, we'd get a three day weekend every week.] Mary F.

throw japan in there and work would be voluntary. :)

[kevin brewer]

le pont is alive and well here in the Antipodes. The first Tuesday in November is Melbourne Cup Day, and a public holiday in this city. Monday is usually taken as a day off. Any year Australia Day (January 26) falls on a Tuesday or Thursday makes a long weekend, the same goes for Anzac Day, 25th April. Christmas Day on a Tuesday adds a long weekend before or if it occurs on a Wednesday, a long weekend after Boxing Day. As for scrounging in the bin for food, USA allegedly has the least holidays and has the highest poverty rates in the OECD. Beggars are common on Australian city streets now and we Australians allegedly work longer hours than the lot of you-42 hrs pw.

[qwerty]

Maggie, the idea of having dinner at 6 PM makes me want to throw up (I believe that in Holland and in some parts of the US they even eat at 5...). What's specific about the French eating ritual is that they think a meal is a "moment of sharing" (food, thoughts, pleasure), discussion with the kids, etc. It's not every member of the family doing his own thing after grabbing a sandwich on the corner of the kitchen table.

And vacations are a moment of discovering other places and ways of living besides your own neighbourhood. They are an opening of the mind, a dépaysement.

[Maggie]

"What's specific about the French eating ritual is that they think a meal is a "moment of sharing" (food, thoughts, pleasure), discussion with the kids, etc. It's not every member of the family doing his own thing after grabbing a sandwich on the corner of the kitchen table." (Qwerty)

The kids going out to the skating rink after supper doesn't mean that supper consists of "grabbing a sandwich on the corner of the kitchen table". Families eat a proper, healthy meal together, talk together about what happened at school etc, and then there's still time to go out for an hour or two in the evening.

Skating rinks are full of families -- the parents are needed to tie up all those skates, because don't forget, in Canada kids learn to skate almost as soon as they know how to walk. You have 3 and 4-year-olds at the skating rink after supper too, not just teenagers. This is a healthy way to spend time.

When my husband worked in Estonia (another northern country), I noticed this too. In the evening the swimming pool was open and you saw families with young children there.

Do the French really have "dinner" in the evening? I thought the whole point of them having two hours off at noon was to allow them to have a proper meal then, and then a lighter meal in the evening.

Maybe the idea of eating at 6 PM makes you want to throw up, but there are a lot of advantages to it. The French have such a rigid schedule that they really don't have time to enjoy themselves much during the week. That's why I said they NEED holidays more than we do.

"And vacations are a moment of discovering other places and ways of living besides your own neighbourhood." (Qwerty)

Yes, but not everybody, even in France, can afford those vacations. Doing things in your own neighbourhood is not such a bad thing. And don't forget, in North America, certainly in Canada, we don't have hundreds of other cities a short distance away, and trains running every few minutes all day long. Distances are greater and communities are more isolated. In summer lots of people just go to the lake. (And that doesn't mean they're deprived -- try it.)

Nowadays lots of people even think Christmas is a good time to fly halfway around the world. Not everybody can afford this, and is it good for the environment? What's wrong with simple pleasures, and participating in the life of your community?

I personally found it extremely difficult to adapt to the French way of dividing up their time, with the stressful rigid week, alternating with the many holidays. It's always all work and no play, or all play and no work. It really is totally different from our way.

[Ros]

Yes, Peter Kingsley "those were great days' & you bring back the same happy memories as I have. After 27 years of living in Provence I'm back in the Latin Quarter, very gradually most of the shops & cafés have changed, the PUF has recently disappeared too!
"Do you know of any other country that does ponts like France ?... CB] - yes, just take Eurostar between Christmas and New Year and you'll have a whole week of "ponts" but am not sure how it's done, partly because of Boxing Day as an extra?

[dot king]

On school times: where I work the first lesson in the morning is at 8.25, there is a break 10.15-10.30, then lunch is 12.20-13.45, a break in the afternoon 15.35-15.50 and school is out at 16.45.
So lunch isn't 2 hours, but 1h25m, and that is to get all the classes, in rotation, through the refectory.
Many pupils living in the country come into school by bus, and many of them have to be at the pick-up point before 7am and then are dropped off there again in the evening, well after 6pm.
That is a very long day, to which homework and hunger are additional.
Those lucky enough to have parents who can drop them off and pick them up get a better deal as they can get some of their homework done "en étude" whilst waiting.
The Halte Garderie of schools (and nearly every school has one for the children of working parents) is usually open from 6am and closes at 18.30 or even 19h in the evening.

Teachers who go on concours are usually expected to make up the teaching hours missed in their absence.
The system "mutation" means that teachers can be attributed a post within a very far-reaching area. I have a colleague who drives in from the other side of Toulouse to start at 8.25am, so that means that when I am getting out of bed at 6.45am, he is already on the road and has been awake for ages, and has to do the same journey to get back home.
So please, knock the system all you want, the teachers are very restricted in this seemingly immutable system, physically, geographically, and in terms of organisation and subject-matter.

The 35-hour week. The law concerning this applies only to enterprises having more than a certain number of employees (I think it's 10+).
Try contacting your plumber or electrician, who works alone or with an apprentice, or a gardner for that matter - chances are you will get either un répondeur or a wife, and the entrepreneur will ring you back late in the evening or, between 12 and 14h. My woodman (for eg) never delivers before 18h, but always within 48 hours of an order.
All this doesn't, IMO, add up to "lazy, workshy French".

I have also worked here in a small business; the official hours were 35. In reality things were different. If there was a client in the agency at the time I should lock up and leave, then I didn't, I dealt with the client in the same way I would have at any other time of the day - same thing at lunchtime (12.30 - 14h).
If I was out somewhere, at a house or at a notaire's for example at closing time, then I couldn't just get up and leave, until the work was finished. I have arrived home from a completion at 21h+ more than once from one particular notaire who insisted on "practising" her very poor English, at the cost of a very long day for everyone.
Clients would also sometimes insist on taking me out to dinner for my hard work - now this sounds really lovely of them, and it often was - but what they really want to do is ask lots of complicated questions and thus keep you working until a late as 11pm. (I found a way of knocking this on the head at the risk of being thought lazy and workshy or ungrateful!) Clients also think nothing of telephoning in the evening, at home, and on Sundays.
Without being rude, there is very little you can do about it. It got so bad that I gave my friends a code-ring and wouldn't answer otherwise.
I well remember an American couple spending HOURS at a house and the woman saying to her husband "maybe we should let them know at the hôtel that we won't be in for dinner at 6.30." I said "I think they already know you aren't going to be there, it's 7.15."
"Oh no," she said, and what about you? What time do you finish?" I couldn't resist, I'd really had it by that time, and replied, "Six o'clock." It was another half-hour before we moved.
And all this doesn't count the Sundays and bank holidays which are other people's free time, but added to my work-time - in that job.
The boss also worked hard, but I don't think he worked as hard as I did, because he doesn't speak English (I presume he still doesn't), also because I now realise that a lot of his absences were spent serially philandering, but there's a subject for a different thread one day!

When the 35-hour week became law, there were people whose job it was to check up, and we would get phone calls from whichever government agency was in charge of it. My boss would field the calls, avoid answering, say he was with clients, in a meeting, just leaving, whatever came into his head, but would not answer the questions. I knew perfectly well that the law only applied to larger enterprises and when one day it was I who picked up the phone, I calmly answered their questions and: end of story.
For some reason, he was furious, but then he was always furious for some reason or other, so business as usual . . . : )
The above, of course is my experience, but I know from some of my French friends that it isn't at all unusual in small enterprises to be at the total mercy of the clientèle - and the boss - if you want to keep the job, you do the necessary.
Thank you for your kind attention. : )

[isobel]

Maggie I agree that it's "all work and no play or all play and no work" in France, and as a British person it's something I find it strange too. I was having a conversation a few months ago with a French friend who has a good postion in a major french company - all the benfits of 35 hour week, rtt job for life (he's worked in the same company since graduating over 25 years ago) etc. I said I found it strange how obsessed french people were with holidays and he said that going to work in France was not something many people enjoyed doing -very rigid hierarchical system, promotion often not based on merit but on who you know etc etc. He said he'd noticed when visiting other companies abroad, including the UK that the work atmosphere was much more relaxed and friendly.
Do other French people agree that the reason for the French love of long holidays is the unpleasant working environment in France?

[textibule]

Well, it wouldn't be fair to France to actually work at writing something original during the month of May in France (please take note Charles) but please allow me to cut and paste something I wrote on the subject 2 years ago on, well, yeah, my blog:

To Holiday or not to Holiday?

Yesterday was Pentacote, minor holiday in the catholic world that was also, until recently, another work holiday in France, a country where work holidays outnumber varieties of cheese.

Until recently, I say, because two years ago, Pentacôte was officially downgraded to a simple workday in France just like any other.

This downgrade was the official government response to intense public outrage two years ago following the brutal heat wave in August 2003 that left 15000 elderly dead from dehydration and other heat-related causes. An outraged French public, upon returning home from their annual month-long August holidays and finding that tante Ghislaine and oncle François were no longer with them except in spirit, demanded explanations from the government. State officials, who had spent the better part of the blistering month on the various beaches of the world themselves, had to come up with some sort of official-sounding measure that would renew frenchpersonnes’ confidence that a) of course the French govt was fully capable of controlling the weather if it had only not been on holiday itself, and b) they (frenchpersonnes) could continue to take the month of August off without having to worry whether grand-mère and grand-père, left behind in the unventilated Paris apartment, were drinking the recommended minimum daily quantity of Evian.

The principal official-sounding measure issued by the perspiring govt was that frenchpersonnes would work on Pentacôte. They would do this in an inspiring show of solidarity, not receiving pay for their workday (which up until then had been a paid holiday) but rather ceding the wealth generated by working on a ‘holiday’ to the govt, who would redistribute it in some way guaranteed to help improve the sort of the elderly.

This did not go down well with the public, who will do many things to help their fellow man, even old ones, but working a whole day without pay is not one of them. So, like many french laws that attempt to change things, respect for this law became ‘tentative’, then ‘optional’. And as of yesterday, ’selective’.

(There is an old joke that the French tell about the Belge or Poles, or Corsicans, or whoever they’re feeling smarter than at any given time, about how the govt of that country decided that the British way of driving, ie, on the left side of the road instead of the right side, wasn’t such a bad thing, and that it would be a good thing to do it in their own country. But officials couldn’t decide on the timing of the change, afraid that people would be perturbed by too abrupt a change in habits.

The compromise that was eventually reached, that was deemed satisfactory to all sides, was that during the first 30 days of the new method, only heavy trucks would drive on the left…

Ha, ha…)

So, on this, the second attempt at a Pentacôte as non-holiday workday, the first results are in:

* School teachers went to work but students were given the day off.
* Parents, who were supposed to go to work, wound up staying home to care for their children.
* Businesses were expected to remain open but truck deliveries were forbidden.
* The wonderful open farmers’ markets everywhere in France were open, but for lack of delivery, the stands were empty.
* Because the markets were bare, the restaurants didn’t bother to open.
* MacDonalds did a thriving business.

[colin grayson]

dot ; interested in your introduction of the working hours at your school , approx 7 hours per day , nice work if you can get it in my opinion
however it doesn't enable me to make a fair comparison , maybe they work more days ?[ when I was at school it was 5 1/2 days per week ]
so how many days per week , also per years please

[azloon]

ahhhh, it's so nice to see us arguing about which of our respective countries has 'la plus raisonnable système de travail' rather than whose wartime atrocities were the most heinous and barbaric.

for a wonderfully humous account of the reaction of one Brit to the french workplace, see "My Year in Merde,' a memoir of this guys' attempt to set up a chain of tea houses in Paris.

My son worked for media relations company in Paris run by an american (who had lived in Paris for 25 years) but was essentially a french company, with exclusively french employees.

It was after this experience that he, rather plaintively, asked me if I minded if he never worked in a conventional occupation ever again (he was treated rather shabbily, particularly by french clients of the firm). he is now a free-lance writer and director in the u.s.

Incidentally, my son didn't think 'My year in Merde' was as hilarious as i did. so perhaps i was laughing at the stereotype and not at actual working conditions. or he was having a 'bad hair day.'

[azloon]

Textibule

Very funny account of the May holiday chaos in france. You can't invent this stuff !!

one a somewhat different subject but not unrelated to france's particular brand of absurdity (we all have our own):

re France's obsession with obscure laws and tradition:

my son was working as a bicycle tour guide in Burgundy one summer and staying in the servant quarters of an old chateau (i suppose there aren't any news ones). the maintenace guy there one day was replacing apparently perfectly satisfactory panes of glass in the building. my son asked him what he was doing, and he replied, "Oh, the law says we have to do this every one hundred years." as i said, you can't invent this stuff.

[dot king]

colin grayson:

I was making a point of the length of the day for the pupils more than for the teachers.
The school does a 4.5 day week, no school Saturdays, or Wednesday afternoons.
I believe the number of teaching hours per pupil and working presence of teachers are laid down at government level, but I don't know more than that, I do know the organisation of it varies from Académie to Académie.
I intended no criticism of tecahers nor their *apparently* short working hours, indeed I'm the one who gets off lightly as my work doesn't involve me in any conseils de classe or parents' evenings. Nor do I have any marking or examining load.

[Christine]

As some commentators have pointed out, France has an average working time that is far higher than many other european contries. CB, you say that the fact of working less has a cost. Actually, according to the study cited by Léon Mercadet, statistics say the opposite, and quite surprisingly contradict the basic belief "more work-more output": the countries that are economically and socially the most performant in Europe are those where the weekly average time of work is the lowest (first of them Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Germany). The higher the weekly average time of work gets, the lower is the country's economic performance.

[V]

"re France's obsession with obscure laws and tradition:"

That's called history, Azloon. WE who stayed here in Europe, we did not forget our roots, our history and our traditions, obscure and stupid and ridicule as they may look to your young eyes :)

[V]

"re France's obsession with obscure laws and tradition:"

That's called history, Azloon. WE who stayed here in Europe, we did not forget our roots, our history and our traditions, obscure and stupid and ridicule as they may look to your young eyes :)

[Daniel Strohl]

Christine,

You say : "The higher the weekly average time of work gets, the lower is the country's economic performance".

May be, may be. We live in a crazy world! However, one should also look at the unemployment rate. Another related parameter one should not neglect too is the number of assisted persons who would be able to work, but who don't, since they manage to live on subsidies and a little bit "travail au noir" if not drug smuggling in a few extreme cases.

To finance these numerous persons (clients of various political parties and organizations), average persons "stupid enough" to work have to work harder during longer hours ... The whole system may possibly have an influence on "the country's economic performance" :))

May be that the Northern governments and citizens are less tolerant (or "stupid") in these matters as we are.

I remember distinctly a TV reporting on a British shop center may be three years ago. A Turkish worker (he could have been Welsh, Scot or Cockney as well) arrived at the center and said that he had lost his job. He had a meeting with a clerk, who explained him what he could expect in terms of unemployment subsidies. One and a half hour later, he accepted a new job ... I can't remember the details, but the new job was probably not a sinecure.

[azloon]

[That's called history, Azloon. WE who stayed here in Europe, we did not forget our roots, our history and our traditions, obscure and stupid and ridicule as they may look to your young eyes :)] Vee

ah, mon bon ami, i see you have such a high opinion of your riposte that you sent it twice.

would you please tell me more about the history behind this french law requiring the replacement of chateau window glass every one hundred years? what earthly reason could there be?

France has had more Republiques than it has had glass replacements.

p.s. i have never associated 'staying' somewhere as any sort of great virtue. it's basically another way of saying 'doing nothing.' but if you're happy, i'm happy.

:)

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

"would you please tell me more about the history behind this french law requiring the replacement of chateau window"

Most probably, there is no such French law - may be the maintenance guy did make some fun out of a young "Amerlo":))

[Christine]

Daniel Strohl,
As a matter of fact, the rate of social expenditures in Germany, Sweden or Denmark are not lower than in France. In other words, the rate of people living from state subsidies is roughly the same (and even higher if you take the expenditure rate per capita) as in France.
You are right of course, there are always many parameters to consider, but the relation between welfare and low working time the statistics point out is really strikening, and it does not seem to be related in any way to the rate of state subsidies.
Statistics are avalaible here
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1073,46587259&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&p_product_code=KS-SF-08-046
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1073,46587259&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&p_product_code=KS-NK-05-020

[Robert Marchenoir]

Pats, you wrote:

"Robert, you put words into my mouth, comparing a strike to a holiday, but I won't answer and leave you to your teacher bashing."

By taking care to answer me but limiting yourself to this, you are not trying very hard to disprove the reputation French teachers have for laziness.

You teachers feel free to hector the whole nation with politically slanted rants, year after year. You think it perfectly legitimate to go on strike, prevent children from being taught and make a misery out of parents' lives, just because you oppose the government.

And whenever one citizen dares to argue against this, you whine about "teacher-bashing"? As if teachers were some sort of priests, the criticism of whom would be blasphemy?

Give me a break. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

And if you think you are paid too little, why not direct your anger at your unions, instead of at the government?

It's the unions who have insisted for decades on increasing the number of teachers, at the same time the number of pupils was falling. While doing this, they neglected to fight on salaries. When was the last strike where teachers' wages were a major point?

No, all we hear is: we don't want reforms, and we want more staff.

The explanation is obvious: the more civil servant there are, the more powerful the unions get. They have more teachers to put into the street whenever they feel like staging a demonstration (which is quite often).

They have more teachers they can use as permanent staffers for free, thanks to that marvellous French institution which is called "détachement": instead of being paid by the citizens for teaching their children, they are paid to "work" full time for the politicized unions, sabotaging the efforts of democratically-elected governments.

Teachers' unions do not care more for teachers than they care about children, the citizens or the country. All they do is try to expand their own power, and make sure their own militants get cozy jobs.

[dot king]

"WE who stayed here in Europe, we did not forget our roots, our history and our traditions"
(Valentin to Azloon)

Just a minute, isn't this the person who makes such a great mystery of who he is and where he comes from? Who carelessly swapped one nationality for another?

Those Europeans who set out for the Americas took their culture (history and traditions) with them, which is why today's USA is as it is. It has surely evolved from the sum total of all of its immigrant populations.

[Richard]

"Do other French people agree that the reason for the French love of long holidays is the unpleasant working environment in France?"(Isobel)

Although English, I have worked for French companies in France for the last 16 years, so feel half qualified to offer a view.

Most French people I know (both employés and cadres) are prepared to put up with almost zero job satisfaction (which barely registers on their radar as a job choice factor) in exchange for good benefits (job security, holidays, RTT, comité d'entreprise, etc etc). All of which is protected by the sacrosanct principle of the "droit acquis". This means basically that once a benefit has been given it can never be taken back.

Almost the last thing anyone wants to do is change companies. So many benefits are tied into the length of time you have stayed with the same company (ancienneté). In the event of redundancy those employees with less than two years service get nothing. It is well known that even in the largest private sector businesses, salaries are notably lower than market average but people are happy to accept this in exchange for a job for life and ever increasing benefits...

This is an attitude I remember far less from the UK where people would be happy to change jobs at the drop of a hat for a better salary and more satisfying job.

It is this attitude (coté employé) as much as the difficulty of firing someone (coté employeur) that makes the French labour market so static.