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Published on Thursday, September 04, 2008
By LA Daily News Staff Writer
PARIS - It's being called the coup de grace for France's decade-long experiment with a 35-hour workweek - a policy that inspired both envy and ridicule in Europe and the U.S., and even some copycats.
But the short workweek proved difficult to implement and was derided by some in government as a "straitjacket" on France's economy.
Now a new law lets companies negotiate more hours from employees. But it's being met with resistance, even from the employers it was meant to benefit, suggesting that President Nicolas Sarkozy's headline reform may do little to boost growth.
When France first implemented the 35-hour workweek in 1998, economists well beyond the country's borders wondered: Is this the future of work in the developed world? But instead, the ensuing decade saw rich nations' workers laboring ever more.
Even in France, workers average 41 hours a week, thanks to overtime and those workers, such as farmers and the self-employed, who aren't subject to the short week
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