French lessons

I am often amused by my American (and sometimes UK) colleagues who have the stereotypical view of the French as being relatively lazy actually, not just laid back. This is reinforced in their minds by the length of time the French stay away on holiday. I explain in the the following terms to the great discomfiture of the complainants. “The French have long holidays because they can, you don’t because you can’t” There then follows the explanation of the beneficial effects of very high productivity and how the French, since de Gaul began their jouney on the “Germanification” of French industry, have overtaken most other nations, us long ago, the Yanks soon after, to become right up there with the Japanese. The great lesson is that you can have a decent lifestyle and highly satisfying work if only you work smart. You don’t have to spend every waking hour “tied to the desk “. In fact, you do yourself and your employer a disservice if that is your unbending attitude.
Then of course, there is the undeniable fact that the French public service has become one of the worlds best in delivering infrastructure projects, not perfect, but look at ours…………. You can also begin to understand their fury at the anglo-saxon’s attempted wrecking of world economy.

As a Frenchman working abroad since 9 years I have some experience with how we are seen. I think that the approach of the French population to work is quite contrasted. If you look at how the country works in a general you would indeed be struck by the fact that a huge part of the population work for public bodies, that there is always a strike somewhere and that you get concerned while reading that more than 80% of young people wish to work for a public company or an administration. This being said you would be impressed by the strength and the efficiency of most of the larger private companies (L’Oreal, Michelin, Total, Sanofi, Danone, Axa, …) and the innovative power of many smaller companies. In these companies I think that French people are inclined to work a lot of hours, can be quite creative and flexible and are not afraid of implementing complex concepts. On the other hand they are not the best team players, they don’t delegate easily and they are reluctant to speak foreign languages.
I hope this helps. I must now leave to take my summer break….

As a Frenchman living in the US,I was hoping this article would give me a compelling reason to go back to the land of fine food and wine.

Unfortunately,productivity figures can be misleading;the metric in which the French beat the US is on “GDP per hour worked” which still makes the French “poorer” than Americans in terms of total GDP per capita.

Furthermore,the natural unemployment rate in France is higher than in the US, which translates into a smaller fraction of workers out of the total population(52% in France Vs 62% in the US).
Hence,you would have to assume that the top 52% of US workers are less productive,per hour,than their French counterparts to be able to draw any meaningful insights.