From time.com:

“Call it the law that just won’t die. Six months after France’s ruling Conservatives voted to gut the nation’s famous 35-hour work week, anecdotal evidence suggests most companies are sticking with it. French corporations and smaller firms furiously denounced the Socialist’s 1998 work-week reduction, and last year’s law change allows employers to force staff to work longer hours. But most bosses appear to have stuck with the shorter week, to avoid disputes with leisure-loving employees, and, it seems, as a useful tool in dealing with the growing economic downturn.

It’s a classic example of what the French call a pétard mouillé — or soggy firecracker that fails to explode. Few of the expected changes to the 35-hour week have materialized since France’s Conservative government passed a measure in July designed to make it easier for bosses to force their employees to work more. The move retained the 35-hour week as the nominal legal reference to undercut union protest, but then rendered it nonsensical by giving employers a free hand to set far longer work requirements. So far, however, bosses haven’t seen fit to…” continue reading