French have 8 weeks of Vacations: are french lazy ?
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107.Cuban movie poster"Mr.Hulot Vacation"French Tati
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VICHY FRANCE GOLF TOURISM TRAVEL VACATION FRENCH POSTER
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8/7 NTS BRANSON MISSOURI FRENCH QUARTER RESORT VACATION
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Vacation trouble? French Line S S paris ad 1934
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The French Vacation
I'm French and I've been in vacation since two days that's why I'm writing this article :)
There's the current myth that the Frenches are lazy because they have a lot of vacations (8 weeks more or less depending on their firms but it's fixed by law). This article on CBS "France: Less Work, More Time Off : How The French Get Months Off Without Taking A Pay Cut do not say explicitly that the Frenches are lazy but they interviewed Maier writer of bestseller “Bonjour, Laziness” who reveals her secrets on the art of pretending to work. The subtitle of the book is: "The art and necessity of doing the least possible in a corporation.” so that of course one could be inclined to generalize that all frenches are doing this.
Is this true ? Well I cannot pretend to give a definite answer as I hate shallow opinions. What I can say, as I am a french myself, is that we are living in Europe which, since World War I, has acquired a lot of social rights - people had died by fighting for these rights - and the rights of Vacation is one of them. I'm also spiritually affiliated with Edwards Deming (as a former Quality Engineer) who used to say that 80% of people behaviors, either good or bad, is conditionned by the System that they cope with. So If ever a lot of Frenches would be like that, it is not because of some genetic patterns, it is due to the system. If the system change, the people will change.
Also this pattern of alledged "laziness" is more true for lower classes than for higher classes, that's at least what the French middle/high classes do themselves think as the one in the CBS article. Well, as I work as Middle Manager in a Corporation, I can say that there's a lot of Middle / High Class workers who are also lazy. I'm from the old generation and I'm accustomed to do "real" works with my hands and delegate only if I'm not the best to do the job myself (so for example I can still program), what I see is that the young generation of middle class consider that they don't have to do something with their hands, they just want to "manage" other people "to do this, to do that" whereas they've been just out of schools and wouldn't even know how to do the stuffs themselves. They are the people who will be congratuled for the Jobs so that those who really do the work don't feel like they want to work anymore so maybe the laziness :)
That's what I really find pityfull about my French Compatriots ... but as I said I don't want to blame on them mainly but rather on the system.
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Comments
At least Portugal can only improve ... whereas France can go worser and worser :)
err.. trust me I talking about the competent (for our standards) ones here... (note to self, be afraid... be very afraid.... )
This is a very good hub and you are right to point out that it is the system, not the people that is responsible for this. People respond to incentives and expectations and if the system requires that people be generously rewarded for doing little work then they will do little work. After all, why invest great time an effort in doing a job when your efforts will result in the same compensation or other reward as the person who does practically nothing? This has been proved time and again throughout history.
If anyone doubts this and still mistakenly thinks that the French are lazy they need only look to the approximately 300,000, mostly young, French workers who, taking advantage of the free movement of labor allowed within the European Union, to move to Britain where they work very hard and are very productive. In Britain, like the United States but in contrast to France, the economy is more market oriented and people have to work to be successful. While the labor laws in the U.S. and Britain are no where near as generous as those in France, these two nations, in contrast to France, actually have jobs for people. While in France jobs are few and unemployment high. See my recent blog http://hubpages.com/hub/Young_French_Workers_Vote_ describing this recent trend of young French workers migrating to Britain to find work.
My impression is that eventually things will get better in France. I was disheartened when I saw those second protests (at the University of Paris) with YOUNG kids protesting for their stable, boring, soul-crushing jobs, but Sarkozy would not have been elected if that had been the prevailing mood.
France is full of bright, ingenious people, and I agree with you absolutely on Deming's comment on social conditioning.
Hi, tanks chuck and livelonger for your very interesting comments. I have a lot of things to answer but must go now so will do it another day :)
I think vacations are important and the French have the right idea. In the US most employees are lucky to get one or two weeks a year and I know tons of people who let never even take that time to recharge, relax and do something other than work because they are pressured to not take the time off because "it's so busy right now."
When I lived in Australia it was nice, we had four weeks a year there. Not as good as 8 weeks, but much better than one or two! :)
The European vacation shut-down system where all employees get the same amount of vacation is preferable, in my opinion, to the U.S. system in which the length of vacation depends on length of service. This penalized penalizes people who change jobs. Also, vacation shutdowns assure that everybody takes a vacation. Six weeks does strike me as a bit overly generous, especially for employyes on a 35-hour week. With six week vacations and the short work week, the French have chosen leiaure over consumption. That's their privilege.
I too am a great fan of W. Edwards Deming. I attended one of his 3-day seminars a year or so before he died. The U.S. auto industry was very late in adopting his ideas. Deming's theory was consistent with Elton Mayo's human relations in industry theories and those of George Homans and William F. Whyte on human behavior in groups. (Homans, "The Human Group," and Whyte "Money and Motivation" and "Street Corner Society."
Chuck when you say:
"While the labor laws in the U.S. and Britain are no where near as generous as those in France, these two nations, in contrast to France, actually have jobs for people. "
In truth France is not as "generous" as it appears: we are pumped a lot of social taxes which is about 50% for middle class (add 30% of other taxes and you've got the picture) and yes we have a lot of unemployment (20% for under 25 years old and this official number is underestimated as statisticians have protested against gov for twiking the numbers). Neither France or US have ideal system because the system is not made for the People but for those super elites who control and take advantages of both systems. The two systems will in fact converge because the Globalization of the Elitists now want it because for them it will be easier to tax people once they have setup a supra-national government which will be the United Nations.
The system in France was good but it has been managed badly and because of that it will be privatized. I'm not sure it will be better because we all know that the insurance companies are kind of thiefs :)
"I was disheartened when I saw those second protests (at the University of Paris) with YOUNG kids protesting for their stable, boring, soul-crushing jobs, but Sarkozy would not have been elected if that had been the prevailing mood."
The young generation has an official rate of 20% (unofficially ...) among them a lot of immigrates. As in every country and every period of history, people would of course fear the competition for their jobs and they vote for the guy who promises them to close the frontier. That's one of the primary reason Sarkozy has been elected.
Within the Globalization Context of Offshoring and speaking of the sector I know which is IT, there's a lot of lie from Government - including from Sarkozy's one - who listen to the Enterprises interest : they pretend that there are competencies missing and that's the reason they need to import IT workers from other countries. Well in truth there's a lot of IT french workers in France who can't find job when they reach 40 years old and some have even made the Tour of France to protest about that. So you see the immigration problem will be one of tomorrow hottest debate and not only in France but also in US.
"When I lived in Australia it was nice, we had four weeks a year there. Not as good as 8 weeks, but much better than one or two!"
In truth we have 5 weeks but because of 35 hour/week law as we still do 39 hours/week we have 2 to 4 more weeks of vacation. This for private sector, for public sector you can add 4 more weeks :)
But once again all these advantages have a big price: a lot of social taxes. I would prefer personnaly not to pay this taxes and chose to spend it myself to take vacation or not.
Si tu te dis Français d'où sors-tu que nous avons 8 semaines de congés payés?? T'es mytho?? or maybe you're some Fox-TV troll?!!!
To non-french speakers : it's not 8 weeks paid holidays here, but 5...It makes a difference! (by the way, Fox-TV crow-swallowing french-bashers, don't you start sharpening your bifidous tongues, for in perfect, wonderful, dynamic, hard working, business-oriented Germany it's 6 weeks)
The eight weeks come from the French Journalist who says:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/27/60II/mai
"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."
The 5 weeks don't take into account other types of vacation French can have. For example with vacation days called RTTs it adds 2 to 4 weeks depending on the firm so that it amounts to 7-9 weeks of vacation. And big corporates do easily give a few days during May and Christmas.
From what I've read, the worst thing about the labor laws in France is how difficult they make it to dismiss unneeded workers. This freezes workers in workplaces where they are no longer needed and it makes employers reluctant to hire workers until they are absolutely sure (this is really impossible) they have a need for new workers for the forseeable future. The result is that the labor market is very inefficient in France. In the U.S. employers are free to lay unneeded workers off. The employers are required to pay an experience-rated unemployment insurance tax which provides 26 weeks of benefits to workers who have been laid off provided they are available and seeking employment. In this way un-needed workers are encouraged to find jobs with other employers or in other industries where they are needed. The system is far from perfect however, The benefits are too low and many workers, for various reasons, are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.
There are many other problems with U.S. labor law. The law is not conducive to union efforts to organize workers. The private pension system is in disarray as plans are discontinued and promises to workers are broken due to "strategic bankruptcies" which allow employers to dump their pension fund liabilities onto the government's Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Worst of all is the growing number of workers and others who have no health care insurance. I mention these issues so as not to leave the impression that we have a workers paradise in the U.S. compared to France. We do not.
Aaawww for Chrissake,
The RTT are only for people concerned by the 35hrs worweek but doing 39 thanks to a legal loophole designed to ease the pressure it inflicted on small businesses...
Why always that finger pointing to us French?
They are 6 weeks holidays in Germany, only 5 in France
The lowest working people on earth are the Norwegians (not quite incidentally the 2nd wealthiest people on earth), not the French...
In all nordic countries people are working less than the French...So what???
I tell you : because all those countries are WEALTHY, and display excellent records in every aspect you may imagine to scrutinize the quality of life, and NOTHING annoys so much the standard American than to realize that another way of life can beat his pants down! Hence the poor French, the lowest-rated guy on the "lazy" block, gets bashed repeatedly, for faking not to see the REAL STRONG ONES : Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, The Netherlands, Iceland....
Always the same story, endlessly...And so much lies and exaggeration by the way!
"The RTT are only for people concerned by the 35hrs worweek but doing 39 thanks to a legal loophole designed to ease the pressure it inflicted on small businesses...
Why always that finger pointing to us French?"
It's not about that finger pointing to us french ... since I'm French myself :) Doing 35 hrs per week instead of 40h is equivalent to these 2 to 4 weeks of vacations, that's what's the article is saying and I agree. And we're talking about the private sector not even about public sector.
There are also the problem of retirements. I do know some people who departed at 55 years and even 50 years in public sector.
In the future, because of increased productivity and offshoring of services, every country should work less so French are just a bit early :)
En résumé mon cher Eric, pour te prouver que je suis bien français, ne soyons donc pas chauvin :)
Lots of holidays, a 35 hour work week and 2 hour lunch breaks. A half-day mid-week for schools.The French aren't lazy they're smart that's why I live there!
I think it is not about laziness, but about enjoying life and knowing that there are more important things in life that a carreer.
I hate to see my cousins and relatives in America working more than 40 hours a week and most of them managing at least two jobs at a time. They have not family life whatsoever. They have bigger cars, bigger and more elegant houses, designer clothes... but for what?
I think the French have their priorities right. Vive la France!
studies have shown that although they work less, french productivity is higher than that of the US when they are on the job. I think that Americans work so much that they slack off at work as a natural reaction to not having any time to one's self. enjoying life is a neccessity and i think the American system needs an adjustment. The french value people first and as a result they flourish in many ways. When I have a job that treats me right, I'm more likely to want to do a good job and have pride in what I'm doing. We could learn a lesson from the French.
There has been a lot of talk lately about how the US has no legislature requiring paid vacation from employers. In my opinion France isn't lazy but 8 weeks seems like a lot of time for travel / vacation.
I work for a French company, in the US. It's true, they are lazy. Sorry! But to explain, it is the system, not the people at fault. It's simply more socialistic and less rewarding for those who stand out or take initiative. Many French people admire the American system because they could move up in the organization faster. As an American working for the French, I can say I admire how the worker is protected in France. In the US, the unions protect those who are selling their labor as a commodity (uneducated), while us salaried employees take the brunt of any corporate cutbacks. I personally feel it should be the other way around.
There are advantages/disadvantages to both systems, I'll take the US system over the French if forced, but I'd like to combine and enhance parts of both into one system.
Oh and the "efficiency" argument is used frequently by the Germans I've encountered as to why they work less.. and it's NOT true. Again, this is all first-hand experience. I could be wrong and they've figured out how to do my job far faster than I could comprehend, but it's a complete fabrication of the truth. I work in Europe and quite frankly (no pun intended) not only are they less efficient but they work far less as well.
lazy and full of shit. I live in France. It is august. The country has ground to a full halt.
Anansi says:
3 years ago
it could be worse, here in portugal most of the management is not only bossy and demands to be called by titles such as engineer/doctor X while at the same time the vast majority of them doesn't even have the 9th grade, and the new generation of managers comes straight from private schools best known plain and simply selling diplomas without actually bothering to go trough all the "troublesome" learning part, not to mention a series of scandals rnging from money landrying to embezzlement, to our current priminister who aparently graduated without setting foot on a private college wich is now being closed due to embezzlment and corruption charges.