French struggle to say au revoir to 35-hour law

Employers' reluctance to make use of the law's provisions means its economic impact is likely to be minimal, Bouzou said.

Bouzou estimated that the whole package of economic reforms instituted so far by Sarkozy, of which the 35-hour reform is part, would tack on an additional 0.3 percentage point to economic growth next year.

The reform "is probably badly timed," agreed Laurence Boone, chief French economist at Barclays Capital. With the economy close to a recession, declining by 0.3 percent in the second quarter according to a provisional estimate, companies have little need for longer work weeks, Boone said.

Even businessmen who rail against the 35-hour workweek say they don't plan to make use of the new law, at least for now.

The 35-hour week is "a very bad thing, it devalued work, it's unhealthy and difficult," said Gilles Lecointre, founder and chief executive of Intercessio, a 150-person economic consulting firm in Paris.

But Lecointre, who also teaches at French business school Essec and has written a book on small and medium-sized companies, says he has no intention of ditching his company's 35-hour agreement.

"At Intercessio, the negotiations over the 35 hours for salaried employees were long and terrible. It destroyed relationships," Lecointre said, "We're not going to go back through that."

Lecointre recalls a bitter exchange with an employee who was blocking a deal because of a dispute over a few extra minutes of work per day. The working time debate resembled "haggling over a carpet with a rug merchant," Lecointre said.

Under the complicated legislation passed in 1998 and 1999, the legal work week was shortened from 39 to 35 hours, with no reduction in pay. Overtime was limited to 130 hours per year. White collar employees whose work schedules didn't permit a strict application of a seven-hour day were given about two weeks worth of extra holiday, so that once averaged out over the year their work week was also 35 hours.

In practice, French workers average 41 hours of labor a week, according to recent figures from France's statistics agency. That's more than Germany or Britain — and not much less than the 41.7 hours worked in the United States in 2006.

The new law retains the legal limit on working hours but allows companies to negotiate opt-outs with employees. It also lets companies increase the maximum number of working days for white-collar workers to 235 per year from 218 currently. The changes aim to put into practice Sarkozy's campaign slogan, "Work more to earn more."

He has promised not to abolish the 35 hours outright, however, as the measure is popular among workers.

Even though purchasing power is French voters' top concern according to polls, only 25 percent of French want to work more to earn more, according to a recent survey by the CSA polling firm.

Officials at France's largest companies seem reluctant to reopen the issue of working time.

Carrefour, the world's second-largest retailer, declined to comment, as did Michelin, Europe's largest tire-maker. Renault spokeswoman Sophie Perrier said France's largest carmaker is satisfied with the working time agreement it has had in place since 1999.

Two of France's powerful labor unions drew only a few hundred participants to a demonstration against the new law last month in Paris, which could indicate acceptance of the inevitable — or just the fact many employees were away on summer holidays.

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