Quelle surprise

French mired in a ‘laziness epidemic’

Well known for their marathon holidays, long lunches and 35-hour working week, the French have basked in the image of enjoying life’s pleasures while somehow getting the job done.

But the pandemic has taken the French view of a proper work-life balance to new extremes, with a study claiming that France is now mired in a “laziness epidemic” after swaths of the country said they had lost the will to work hard, go out or even socialize.

Many people in France are happy to work fewer hours even if that means earning less, according to findings by Ifop and the Jean-jaures foundation.

In 1990, some 60 per cent of French people said work was “very important” in their life, compared with 31 per cent for leisure. Today, those who view work as a high priority has fallen to 24 per cent, while 41 per cent view leisure as very important. The figures vary widely according to political persuasion, with supporters of Jeanluc Melenchon, the leftist leader, being more than twice as likely to say they have lost their will to work than supporters of Emmanuel Macron — 61 per cent to 28 per cent respectively. Overall, twothirds are happy to work less to earn less today.

Many workers questioned the meaning of their professional lives when 11 million people were furloughed during the pandemic and benefited from one of the world’s most generous state COVID compensation schemes.

The study, titled Exhaustion and laziness epidemic when a part of the French want to slow down, found that home working worsened the problem.

The report’s findings suggest many agree with claims by Sandrine Rousseau, a Green MP, that the French deserve a special “right to idleness.” Rousseau caused a furor after saying that working hard was “essentially a right-wing value” and taking breaks and being less productive was a far healthier objective for the left.