Working two additional days per year to boost the economy by eliminating two public holidays was one of the proposals unveiled by Prime Minister François Bayrou on Tuesday, July 15. The aim is to reduce the deficit to 4.6% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026. The government claims that the gains from these two extra working days would amount to €4.2 billion in increased production.
“It’s a triple penalty,” said Sophie Binet, secretary-general of the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail, France’s major left-wing trade union). “We’ll work more to earn less, while seeing our social rights taken away,” she added. If the measure is adopted, employees will therefore work two more days for the same salary. In exchange for this additional working time, companies will pay a contribution to the state, though the terms have yet to be determined.
“One of the keys to restoring the country’s economy lies in the length of the work week,” argued the prime minister when presenting his plan to save €43.8 billion. “We need to work more; the entire nation must work more to produce [more],” he stated. The French work on average 100 fewer hours than the Germans, stressed Minister of the Economy Eric Lombard a few hours later on France 2 television station.
Fewer people at work
It is true that the French work less than the Germans, as shown by an in-depth study from the Rexecode institute (a French economic research institute), published in December 2024. If we look only at full-time employees, the Germans have the advantage (1,790 hours per person per year, compared to 1,673 in France). But when part-time workers – who are far more numerous in Germany – are included, this gap narrows: working time reaches 1,553 hours in France, 1,630 in Germany. When the self-employed and non-salaried workers are also counted, France overtakes Germany, with 1,607 hours compared to 1,548.
In reality, the issue is not the annual working hours per individual, but the fact that proportionally fewer French people work compared to Germans: 68% of people aged 15 to 64 are employed in France, compared to 70% across Europe and 77% in Germany. This difference is mainly due to the difficulties young people and older workers face in finding and keeping a job. “If France matched the best-performing European countries,” Rexecode estimated, “it would have about 2.3 million more jobs.”
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