Simple "Weekend Economists" October 18-20, 2013

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32. Chinese Can't Understand Why The French Work So Little

http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-cant-understand-why-the-french-work-so-little-2013-10



PARIS (Reuters) - A newspaper open on the bar of this Paris cafe tells of a row over France's Sunday trading rules. But the bar owner, Zhang Chang, says he has little time to follow such debates. He's too busy working.

While French workers worry the country's long economic downturn could mean the end of laws banning Sunday trading and enforcing a 35-hour week, Zhang and Chinese immigrants like him are quietly getting ahead the old-fashioned way - 11 hours a day, six days a week.

"As I see it, when you work, you're paid. So why stop at 35 hours?" he asks, perplexed by France's landmark law which shaved four hours off the statutory working week in the late 1990s.

Zhang owns the Cafe Le Marais in central Paris and is part of a wave of entrepreneurial migrants from China's coastal Wenzhou region who are taking over France's "bar tabac" business. They are doing it by sweat and sacrifice - and by navigating restrictive labor rules, focusing on the bar and restaurant sector that is exempt from the 35-hour rule and the Sunday trading ban, unlike many other industries.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-cant-understand-why-the-french-work-so-little-2013-10#ixzz2iGQW9yav