From my own personal observations over a long period of time, in France relatively more importance is attached to the teamwork than in other countries/cultures

From my own personal observations over a long period of time, in France relatively more importance is attached to the teamwork than in other countries/cultures I knew, precisely because the teams are frequently very heterogeneous in levels of skills. Privileging assistance to other team members over own's workplan-to-execute has never got anyone into trouble (let alone into personal layoff) and is in fact frequently implicitly or explicitly encouraged. Sometimes small companies that are starting a new product, can hire an extremely skilled and expensive specialist only to create the first version of it, and then are not keen to keep him/her, as that becomes complicated and expensive for no good reason (maintenance can or even has to cost less). That said, I don't think anyone would lay off a goose laying golden eggs. I feel the guy's pain, been through some situations myself .. the pain usually brings with it adjustment to reality, only that comes later. What else can I say.