Chirac Promotes Laziness in EU Workplace

Jacques Chirac has embarrassed Angela Merkel by inserting his oversized Gallic proboscis into a planned merger of the EuroNext Exchange with the New York Stock Exchange. Chirac says:

"a "Franco-German solution" with Deutsche B?rse would be better than the recently agreed merger between the Paris-based stock exchange operator and the New York Stock Exchange."

"The French president's comments come amid growing anxiety about the $10bn takeover among Euronext's large shareholders and users in Paris, and could encourage Deutsche B?rse, the NYSE's German rival, to counter-bid. Some Euronext shareholders have already criticised the "sudden rush" to cement the deal with NYSE."

Of course, lame-duck Chirac is notorious for his uninvited imbecilities into areas where agreements have already been reached and the French are already advancing a protectionist agenda with the Arcelor Steel takeover by Mittal and a Spanish attempt to buy energy companies in France and Belgium. An Italian/German bank merger may also be thwarted by growing economic nationalism of the sort initiated by French "dirigistes" afraid of their dwindling economic clout.

On another front, the notoriously otiose French are protesting the fact that other countries allow their workers to exceed 48 hours a week. The French anti-capitalist left consist of layabouts with attytood and worry that their 35-hour work week might be threatened as the French economy sinks ever lower vis-a-vis countries with a work-ethic.

EURSOC cuts to the chase:

The current EU Working Time Directive has it that employees cannot work more than an average of 48 hours a week, unless their country has an "opt-out" of the law. Britain has one such opt-out, several new member states either want or plan their own versions.

However, France and Sweden want Britain and others to lose the opt-out. We can't imagine why Sweden should be concerned with the amount of overtime British workers choose to do, but Paris' long-standing opposition to the opt-out suggests to us that [b]the move is yet another attempt to drag more dynamic EU nations down to France's level[/b]. If France wants to allow its workers 35 hour weeks, that's its lookout and it should bear the consequences - [b]why Paris is obsessed with extending its Crusade to other countries is beyond us[/b].

A good guess might be that work is the curse of the drinking classes, and the French are notoriously unable to avoid "une guele de bois" after extensive tippling. Their debased national ethos cannot abide with mass immigration nor compete with more vigorous entities in a Darwinian"red in tooth and claw" economic arena.

Finally, hard work is seen as a cardinal tenet of Anglo-Saxon capitalist liberalism, which the French and their EU allies fear will wrest economic control from the lazy political elites of the languorous layabout countries on the blue Med.