That's one way to frame it, but it misses out some key facts around the setup in France. Firstly they have 11 national holidays which is already fairly high but employers are still free to provide their employees extra paid holidays to make up for the difference, if they can accept a little bit less profit. It's also quite common in France to do 35 hour weeks, which is below the average for most other countries and will impact productivity too. They're also lagging behind some other European nations in raising their retirement age, as it relates to state benefits. Altogether it's an effort to allow companies to have people working more days in the year which can help fund these other perks that exist. If the country starts to go bankrupt then many more citizens will ultimately suffer, so sometimes you have to put a little bit extra in to keep the good times flowing.