This law allowed very positive changes, even if they aren't the officially intended ones. In exchange for a 10% work time reduction, largely compensated by year

This law allowed very positive changes, even if they aren't the officially intended ones. In exchange for a 10% work time reduction, largely compensated by years of near-zero salary rises, it lead unions to accept a lot of flexibility improvements, which are usually impossible to get through in France. (there's as much flexibility as anywhere else in France, but very poorly distributed: indeterminate work contracts are ridiculously stable, and everyone else is exceedingly precarious) As for the 35h week, most professionals such as engineers never wanted it nor got it. Instead, we keep contracts in fixed number of days per year, rather than hours per week, and we get an extra 10 days or so of paid vacations called "RTT". Extra vacations are more affordable in France than in many other countries: being a very touristic place, French people spend a lot of their vacation time in France, hence a lot of their vacation money back into French economy.