Live in France: Less work, more pay! Wednesday, December 12, 2007

...if you can stomach that! :P

"In my line of job, I am a journalist working on a French newspaper. We have eight weeks of vacation -- eight weeks of vacation," says Stephane Marchand, a senior economics editor at the French newspaper, Le Figaro. "Eight weeks, yes. I know it may be surprising for you because I know in the U.S. you might have only two or three, if you’re lucky, but we have eight."

Like most Frenchmen, Marchand has no guilt about taking so much time off. In fact, it’s the law: full-time workers in France are guaranteed at least five weeks vacation -- guaranteed those long lazy days in the sun, and leisurely lunches in outdoor cafes.

On top of the five weeks, there are another dozen public holidays, and a maximum 35-hour work week, with no paid overtime allowed. Managers like Marchand, who work more than 35 hours a week, get more time off.

"The so-called 35-hour work week gives us 22 more days a year," says Marchand.

Twenty-two more days in addition to the eight weeks vacation?

"Yes," says Marchand. "Which is a lot."

.....Americans, I think, believe more in future than French people. We, French people, right now we don’t believe that the future will be better than now," says Maier. "We think that the future will be worse than now, so we don’t have any reason to work."

Why?

"I don’t know, maybe we are an old country. We’re depressed," says Maier. "But the food is very good."

But that’s exactly the kind of attitude that irks French entrepreneur Ari Zlotkin, president of Anne Fontaine, a successful French blouse company. "Working for me is what, is a very important value and is a good value," says Zlotkin, who manufactures in France, but has high-end boutiques across the globe, from New York to Tokyo. And there’s no doubt in his mind which country’s workers he prefers.

"In America, we don’t lose time," says Zlotkin. "We don't lose time. In France, we lose a lot of time with, I mean, fixing social troubles. We lose a lot of time with things that are not related to the business we are doing."

"What about the argument that in France people have more leisure time, more time to enjoy themselves, the art of conversation, the long lunches?" asks Logan.

"I think it’s a nice image. I’m not sure it’s true," says Zlotkin. "What is sure is that statistically, since the 35 hours, people are staying longer in front of their TV."

"They’re spending more time in front of the television?" asks Logan.

"Yeah, and also and, you know, also it’s very nice to have more free time, but you must also have the money to be able to take advantage of this free time," says Zlotkin.

Read the entire article here.

I mentioned this article to my friend who lived in Paris most of her life, and she simply told me:

1. French don't care about money.... but they want it. Lots of it.

2. French don't like foreigners coming into their country and use the French language as a barrier and a way to mercilessly mock others who don't speak perfect French with the perfect Parisienne accent.

3. French are lazy and cannot understand what the point of working is, yet would like to enjoy the fruits of the labour.

She's also the same one that told me about how they eat in Paris because she lived among them. They like to keep up that image of making things at home (and a small exception do), but in general, they buy ready-made items which are VERY good mind you, nothing like what's available here in North America, but the fact still stands that they don't make things from scratch all the time like what they'd like others to believe.

And all those fab French restaurants? They'd like people to believe that they go to them every day or at least a good part of the time because the food is so delicious but they can't afford it, but can talk a good game.

Instead, they eat pizza. Yep. Lots of pizza. It's much better than here in North America from what she tells me, but they eat lots of pizza because they love it, and because it's cheap(er) than a French restaurant.