I am French, live and work in France currently so I am familiar with the situation. It's true that work-related laws favour a lot the employees over the company

I am French, live and work in France currently so I am familiar with the situation. It's true that work-related laws favour a lot the employees over the company and protect them a lot but I really don't see this as a bad thing at all. Employees cannot slack of all day, endanger the company be fired and still sue you and won tons of money. But you cannot fire half of your company without a really good reason either. I can understand that it seems strange to someone not working in France but when you've lived with this kind of protection it really is one of the best thing that makes me want to keep working in France.