That the French are addicted to days off, 35-hour weeks, non-work, and even teleworking… it’s obvious.
Our culture is more a culture of rentiers than of adventurers. The problem is that we do not have the means to receive a perpetual annuity, particularly of social origin.
If we had oil reserves, everything would be different, but that is not the case… The work of some must finance the non-work of others. Or let’s make reserves, save money.
The subject of debating who works and who does not is inexhaustible, especially in May when the succession of public and/or non-working holidays (there are four which fall in the middle of the week) allows as many people as possible to take a break. or two additional weeks of vacation.
The related topic, which is preempted by everyone who has read “Economics for Dummies”, is how much public holidays cost the entire economy. Employers’ organizations are not the last to complain. They explain to us that France has such an addiction to non-work that we are breaking all public holiday records.
As a corollary, they add that this habit leads to a colossal loss of wealth; INSEE has calculated the cost of a public holiday at 1.5 billion euros in lost GDP. As there are 11 public holidays on the calendar, this fantasy would therefore cost us nearly 16.5 billion euros, or 0.4 points of growth.
For the guardians of the budgetary temple, this is not nothing, Rachida Dati would say 12 billion is almost 4 times the culture budget… except that this type of estimate and comparison does not make much sense.
In this very French debate on the cost of suspension bridges in May, we are making two mistakes:
The first is to say that France is among the world champions of public holidays and long bridges. It’s wrong. With our 11 public holidays in the year, we are at the bottom of the European average, where the days not worked due to public holidays range from 8 to 15. The worst off are the English and the Dutch who do not have that 8 public holidays, the Germans and the Irish have 9 days. France, Sweden and Italy benefit from 11 days a year. The most varnished are Cyprus, Slovakia with 15 days, Malta and Spain with 14 days. So not all French people are treated the same way. Because some regions have their own holidays, Alsace and Moselle have certain days in common with Germany (December 26 for example). In the Antilles, Guadeloupe and Martinique, the abolition of slavery is commemorated in May.
The second mistake is to think that it costs the French economy very dearly. Yes, but ! The reality is very different because the French economy manages to compensate, through production surpluses and wealth creation, for the losses caused by those who do not work on public holidays.
First, the modern economy means that certain services work every day and 24 hours a day, hospitals, security services, etc. Then, since France moved its factories to “emerging countries”, the development of service activities and in particular digitalization means that many sectors remain in activity and, in addition, thanks to covid, the month of May is peaking teleworking annuals.
Finally, vacations for some give work to others. In commerce, tourism, hotels, restaurants, transport, no one will complain about the bridges in May. And many recognize that in May they have the highest turnover of their year… In 2023, the hotel industry had already recorded an increase in attendance of 20%… let’s not talk about the figures for “Airbnb…”.
Morality, sometimes you have to take the figures with a grain of salt, especially since during a very long weekend we have time…
