This puzzles me somewhat

It seems to suggest that a lot of people are fed up with strike action in France. Fair enough there is a real cost and the inconvience probably gets right annoying and if the route of the problem is a group of people who have it better than you by being able to retire earlier than what you can I imagine that irks people and probably doesn't lend itself to sympathy.

It seems that yon Sarkozy fellow thinks the fact that the average French person works less is a bad thing, hurting their economy. I can't say I'm all that knowledgeable about the French or indeed world economic affairs but it sounds to me like lower average working hours and earlier retirement are good things and aspired to. Now far be it from me to say early retirement should be mandatory either if you enjoy your job and are good at it you should be entitled to work as logn as you like. I think that the base logic behind the increasing workings hours to equal increased economic vitality for the French is fundamentally flawed.

Well maybe not entirely but are there no unemployed people in France just now? It semes to me whether economies boom or bust there is always unemployment, homelessness and all myriad forms of social problems but surely essentially punishing the average working citizen by trying to increase how much they work is a dreadful idea. I can't say I have the solutions but the basic answer to increasing your economic output should surely rather than make people in work work more get more people into work?

I appreciate it probably gets more complex but how many people just now in Britain wouldn't kill to reduce their working hours to somethign like the French average?