French left scorns proposal to relax 35-hour week law

[papau]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1192979,00.html

French left scorns proposal to relax 35-hour week law

Sophie Arie in Paris
Friday April 16, 2004
The Guardian

French leftwing groups and trade unions yesterday howled down a proposal to touch one of the most sacred tenets of French life: the 35-hour week.

Members of the ruling centre-right party proposed that the law, inherited from the last Socialist government, be altered to allow companies rather than the state to set their own ceilings on working hours.

But critics said the proposal from the Union for a Popular Movement was tantamount to scrapping the much cherished law, introduced in 1998 to create more jobs and redress the balance between work and family life.

Government figures say that the law helped create 350,000 jobs between 1998 and 2001. <snip>

The leading trade union Forces Ouvrières suggested that the government should "put the report in the freezer", saying that its sole purpose was to "leave employees alone to face their employers".<snip>

[Rex]

1. Dammit! When will the French realize that work is what life is all about?

Just ask any American CEO...a happy productive citizen is one that works 60 hours a week and has no health insurance! JK.

[BlueJazz]

2. Even being an Atheist...

....I have to say "God Bless the French"
Unlike Americans, They work to live and not live to work.
Half of us here live like a pack of fuckin' worker drones.

[Laughing Mirror]

3. and the other half like a pack of wolves

God Bless America!!

[Dr Fate]

4. More time to paint, eat cheese, sniff wine...

...okay- okay- but we have to have at least one obligatory frog joke...