Brit by birth, and I've never visited France, so take this with a grain of salt, but: I've worked with many Japanese, German and British engineers who have wor

Brit by birth, and I've never visited France, so take this with a grain of salt, but: I've worked with many Japanese, German and British engineers who have worked with French engineers (in France, often as "ex pats"), and these guys never complained about France's 35 hour work week. They did, however, complain about the (this is my summary, from memory) excessive smoking breaks, longer lunches, casual attitude towards work, and (yes, sorry for the stereotype) a good amount of lost time talking about women in the office they'd like to bang. I don't know. The 2 French engineers I've worked with have been fine, but that was on U.K. soil... maybe on the home field it's different? My wife, who's American but both parents are French, says that the French generally have an inferiority complex but over-compensate by shit-talking other European countries and the U.S. I don't think I've experienced this personally, although I'm in tech and she's not, so maybe in her world that is more common (or maybe she's wrong? dunno)