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From Times Online
May 14, 2007

French 'are world's worst work whingers'

Jenny Booth and PA News

Britons whinge more about work than any other nation except the French, a new report showed today.

A study of work attitudes among almost 14,000 employees in 23 countries showed that the French were the most unhappy with their pay and working hours, despite the 35 hour working week introduced by Jacques Chirac.

Staff from Britain and Sweden came joint second, in the study by FDS, a research group. Two out of five workers in this country said they were not satisfied with their level of pay, compared with just 15 per cent in Ireland.

Americans came fourth, while the workers who grumbled least were in Holland, the study found.

Charlotte Cornish, managing director of FDS, said: “The French come out on top - it seems unlikely that Nicolas Sarkozy’s election and the likely shift to more Anglo-Saxon economic practices will make the workers any more happy with their lot.

“After the French, British employees are the most likely to be dissatisfied with their work situation, despite their relative good fortune."

Ms Cornish said that high levels of pay did not make workers grumble less.

“It’s also interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world’s biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite having by far the highest levels of income relative to their cost of living," she said.

“Compare them to Thai workers. While real levels of income are more than eight times higher in the States, more workers in the US feel their pay is a problem than in Thailand.

“The UK and US, with their marked competitive individualism and unequal wealth distribution, both appear towards the top of the world’s list of whingiest workers."

The study also covered how people felt work impinged on their private lives.

More than one in three British workers said they did not get enough holidays, while one in five complained about the trials of commuting.

People can whinge and complain about their pay and working conditions as much as the like. No body can change the fact that we are living in a global economy and the only key to success is productivity and competitiveness. Only some countries in the Middle East and Africa are exempt from these constrains because of their highly in demand natural resources. The French unions may be very pleased with themselves about how much muscle they can flex forcing their government yielding to their demands seemingly for the benefits of their workers. The situation is to some extent very reminiscent to Britain in the early 70's. What a lot of workers in the West fail to realise is that a lot of developing countries like China, India, South Korea, Singapore etc. are forging ahead with their impressive economic growth because their workers have an entirely different work ethics. One shouldn't be surprised if there is a reverse of economic fortune between the West and the East very soon!

Wing, Poole, UK

I'd be interested to see where Canada fell into this list. I'm surrounded by a combination of complete whingers and those who have made their career their life. I'm beginning to think that i'm the only one that realises that a job is a fact of life.

Scott Millson, Toronto, Canada

It's ironic, but the French are complaining mainly because they want to work more and being paid more, contrary to the british who want to work less...
Concerning your article, Ms Booth, I will add that it's not Jacques Chirac who introduce the 35 hours working week, but it was Martine Aubry who did it, during the ministerial cohabitation with Jospin's governement. Chirac may be Chirac but I didn't do that...

Jerome, Smallville, Utopia

Dissatisfaction with work and pay is probably the reason why so many Brits emigrated to the USA a few hundred years ago ;-)
And therefore of course also why North Americans are now so dissatisfied too.
Oh, and obviously the invasion of Great Britain a thousand years ago infused the dissatisfaction of the French into English life.
How enlightening history can be ;-)

jim, london, uk

Having lived in France, Britain, Sweden and the States, I suspect that the results are correlated with real levels of development. Whinging may be a better indicator of wealth than GDP, which would conform with my experience of the four countries. I encourage those influenced by the harbingers of doom to visit Paris in order to make up their own minds on the imminent demise of France.

Pierre Bernardi, Paris,

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