


The French way of work


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Obviously companies in France need to choose their manager postions much more wisely. The facvt that two fifths of employees dislike their managers is terrible. When people do not like their managers they ussually do not like their jobs which means they will not put as much effort into what they are doing. When workers do not put their best offorts forward the products coming out will not be up to par which could lead to a downslope in the economy which all of Europe is experiencing right now due to the EU being in trouble. Maybe if France improves their managers it will help boost the economy.

ahmed limam

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Whether you use the term "teamwork" or travail d'equipe does not matter, the fact is there is a segregation by culture and education between management and the employee. As long as there exists this perceived difference there will always be a sense that the company is not working in the same direction; each individual in the company will have their own priorities and will have no idea of what teamwork really means!! How many times has management and employees sat down at the same table and shared a meal and "shot the breeze"...I doubt it rarely happens.

Marie_Claude in reply to Terrence202

you ignore that enterprises aren't a school twin sheme, the enterprises have their own culture, and it is developped through conventions, reunions, seminaires, through leasures, soccer teams, (or any sport, that the enterprise comittee subsidies) through trecking adventures.... such educative vacations happen several times in a year !


Careful with your praise (or perhaps your irony?). After all, Joan of Arc was judged to be a witch and was burnt at the stake.

Victor's justice, no doubt.

Marie_Claude in reply to Vive_chimie

hmm it is the legend that the Church forged in a context of religions questions, and because the Brits occupation prevented Vatican to direct french policy, remember France was the "Church elder daughter"

Joah of Arc in reality was of noble extraction, probably Charles VII half sister, and the grand daughter of the king of England. How then could she read, assume her defense, ride on horse, know the military tactics, and direct a army, which wasn't known to be pro-females ?

A recent book said that she wasn't burnt, but a anonymous whore and sorcerer was in her place

The Church, and France had interest to keep this legend, it motivated the troops to fight the invadors, because the order came from a divin origin, and today the Joan of Arc cult brings some clinging money from tourists and pilgrins !

Vive_chimie in reply to Marie_Claude

Dear Marie-Claude,

When I wrote "Joan of Arc was judged to be a witch" I was trying to indicate that I was merely reporting the "official" version of history, rather than that I approved of it. I am against capital punishment in any form and obviously against any notion of "witchery". For the record, I don't believe in miracles either.

Yes, I have heard that J of A wasn't what she appeared to be, as far as her family origins were concerned; that neatly removes the evidence for another "miracle".

A. Hajji

The article is a great introduction to a larger piece that should include the influence of French management styles, as perpetuated and shielded by the Grandes écoles, on the 50 plus Francophone countries worldwide. I will abstain from attributing to the French parent model all the existing ills that plague these countries’ inefficient bureaucracies and their business and manufacturing environment –as many of these ailments are homegrown—but it is no exaggeration to say that the inherited and protected French way of doing business and administration in these countries is one of the major reasons why all attempts to reform and renew have so far failed. The blighted situation will endure, as the elites in these countries keep passing the future of their relative countries to their offspring, themselves trained in the same French elitist schools. You easily find these French speaking scions of the Francophonie in ministerial positions and in the top management of the leading ten firms in any particular country.
What’s more pernicious is that the same poorly-managed firms in France open shop in Francophone countries and transplant their non-democratic managerial practices in the nascent production sectors there. Not only the “natives” will almost never reach meaningful positions in these enterprises, paralleling the situation of the non-aristocrat/dirigist class in the article, but the propensity of these firms to only employ the France-trained sons of the elite (described above) is far from motivated by a like-minded logic: these kids are the best protection against local government interference in the affairs of these firms, as well as formidable bridgeheads to juicy contracts with powerful uncles and siblings in the respective governments.

Marie_Claude in reply to A. Hajji

how do you know? been there?

you know why these firms hire a "white" man? because otherise the wole family if not the whole village would sit around and play the boss, though work has to be done, and it's done ! better by a frenchman than a Chinese, cuz Chinese prefer to bring their home workers rather than to employ the locals, sure Chinese would do the work with 2 persons, while you need 10 locals, but that's the job there, and we know how to manage it, ask the locals, with whom they prefer to work, with a local, a french, or a Chinese?


To all the folks who think that elite universities are the same everywhere, and that France is no different - nothing more than a variation on the evil Oxbridge / Ivy League mafia that oppress the Anglo-Saxons (a term which has little currency outside France).

You might want to check your numbers.

Oxford has more than 21,000 students. Cambridge? A solid 18,000. Harvard a shade more than Oxford.

The French ENA? 533. Total.

So - who's elitist?

kingtran in reply to NullAleph

Im not sure what point you are trying to make but ENA is not the only grande école in France.

If you add in Mines, X, Ponts et Chaussés, Supelec etc etc Im sure you will get a comparable figure.

And I think France is different. My feeling is that Oxbridge will get you a good job, but once you actually start working, Oxbridge will be largely ignored. In France the grande école will support you your entire working life.

guest-iwonise in reply to kingtran

The association of the top-ranked grandes ecoles - ParisTech - enrolls 19.700 students to whom we can add the 2.300 of the Ecole normale superieure, so it merely matches Oxford (21.000). Moreover, Oxbridge isn't the only elite university, the british top-ten (according to THE ranking : Oxbridge, ICL, UCL, LSE, Manchester, King's, Bristol, Durham, Sussex) regroup 187.000 students, far ahead the grandes ecoles which enroll too few people to be a social mobility tool. French age group ranges between 700K and 800K births/year, so it means that only 4-5000 people can access to the top grandes ecoles per year, less than 1% of the age group.
France is a stucked country and I agree with the comparaison of feudality, when 1% of the population (the nobility) took all the leading positions...

Marie_Claude in reply to guest-iwonise

hmm you forget that our finance schools rank in the top ten


also that most of our students graduate, more than in the US


"Les étudiants qui ne décrochent pas de premier diplôme sont en effet plus de 40 % aux États-Unis, au Mexique, en Nouvelle-Zélande et en Suède, mais moins de 25 % en Belgique, en Corée, au Danemark, en Espagne, en France et au Japon"

kingtran in reply to guest-iwonise

Thank you for taking the time to reply but...

In the British top ten students will study subjects such as medicine and law which are not (Im 95% sure) offered in grandes écoles, so it is not really comparing like with like.

Your comment however that the grandes écoles are more selective and restrictive is very true.

More students get their undergraduate degree in France because there are no fees. The high cost of undergraduate fees in the US lead students to either work and study at the same time, or to forgo a degree for a job, where they will be able to rise through the ranks because they proove their worth, and not because of which 'grande école' they graduated from.......


BORING!!!!!!!!!!why your country held this newspaper???????it's difficult for chinese students and the much boring teacher made their exam paper according to the passage on the paper!!!!!!!!!!!!


Today many companies rely on the mind of elite schools to hire employees. Although most of the time these bright minds accomplish their own jobs, they don't necessary possess all the skills that companies need. Many French people lack the effort to go to work, and to cooperate with their co-workers, as the article stated. This has a huge impact as workers do NOT aim to improve the company and achieve new goals. On the other hand, Americans and German do take the effort to have a social life between their workers and bosses.


Of course managers must share the blame with the workers regarding "the French way of work;" they are the ones guiding the masses, and their attitudes obviously affect the workers' attitudes. Though a lot of this article is based on generalizations, these firms with so many dissatisfied employees should simply follow Danone; I know I would be more inclined to work harder if promotions were a result of competence rather than test scores.


I'd like to see a similar study done for British workers - and why is it that such productive and exemplary citizens have a problem handling their great success and glory - and end up drinking their problems away, every night after 5pm. And when on vacation, they vomit their way through the inferior countries of Continental Europe.


The problem with french society comes from its educational system . Very authoritarian , a monologue from teacher to student , no interaction with the local community , teachers emotionally distant from students and parents . Not much democratic culture at school ( just obey and folloow what you are told and shut up ) . Strong indoctrination with the school curriculum . Absence of cultural openness and this is what you get finally have to interact ona in a daily life bases ¨La pensee unique¨ with strong hostility to what is different . If you work for a french company in one of their branches in the world for an local employee to get to the top of the company will stop in his home country never all the way to its Paris headquarters. Not like anglo american companies that have top executives coming from India, mexico, europe etc . For a country proud on their equality you can seriously sense its selective process based on nationality ( one of us ) . It funny how intellectually perverse french society has become , prisoner of its own ideas and can´t get out of them .

Marie_Claude in reply to artgaleryfidelio

boff, because the french society doesn't adopt the anglo-saxon way of educating people , it's worth to be thrown as a pervertion !
BS, French managers are recruited by international companies, see how many french names you got in the upper positions, even in American Companies ! so if it was due to their strict one way education, I bet then that they wouldn't have been recruited !

and how many french companies are successful on the planet, I recall you that France is before Britain as far as GDP

You just have to read american blogs to know what the american think of their education system, some sort of general socialist endoctrinment, which isn't the case in our grandes ecoles !


Maybe if the French weren't so lazy and liked working more then their economy wouldn't be so bad! People, no matter what country, should love their job and do what they are most passionate about. It is sad to see that only 64% of people in France today like their job. I thought this fair sounded interesting and fun for workers to really show their appreciation and how much they love their job but I guess not. That fair has always had something go wrong and this wasn't any better.


My sympathy to mes amis Français; I've experienced this kind of thing once here in Canada.

One of my past employers was bought by ABB. Before a year had passed, a good 60-75% of my peers had left because of 'we don't care how you did things, this is how you're going to doi them now'.

The most 'I can't believe that people can be like this' moment came when the newly appointed Prez of ABB in Europe sent an e-mail to all employees. It read along the lines of "We earned a 12.3% margin thjis past year; this year we're aiming for 12.7%. Let's all do our best this year so that we can attain the 12.7%!"

If I'd ever had any doubts about the Teutonic technocracy's lust for abstraction, I lost it at that moment.

Yes, Jürgen. I DID decide to dedicate my life to the Greater Glory of my Employer (TM). Thing is, it wasn't ABB.

Bogdan Negru

I have worked for and with Alcatel-Lucent employees based in France and an estimated 90% of instances were positive ones, starting from excellent business acumen to great relational counterparts.
The ideas developed in the article might very well be due to the difference between state-owned (or partially owned) companies and privately led companies.
If subsidies do allow the state-owned companies to lose money, for sure privately-led companies will promote and encourage performance based results and the employees that bring them.


I had the dubious pleasure of working for 3 years for a major French corporation. Having worked previously for a series of large US international corporations where people were judged largely on performance results, I found the Parisian HQ claustrophobic and introverted to an unusual degree. It was very formal, hierarchical and intensely intertwined with the politicised French etatist economy; without exception the entire senior corporate management was from 2 of the French grandes ecoles. The CEO/Managing Director had been parachuted in from one of the State utilities and after two years went on to the Parisian urban rapid transit transport company.

Whereas having a pool of technically well qualified managers trained to identical standards could have a positive beneficial effect (they are all trained to think and communincate in the same manner so misunderstandings do not arise) the negative side of seeing only one solution to an issue or problem meant that alternatives were poorly explored and worse still, misunderstood if offered. It also resulted in a complete lack of understanding that business in other countries could be done in different ways. This lack of understanding that solutions other than those generated in the case studies in the grandes ecoles could be just as or even more valid put the corporation at a disadvantage in a competitive business environment. The "In France we do things..." mentality was stifling.

the minimalist

If these elite schools are so good, might it not have occurred to them to teach their alumni that nepotism and lack of meritocracy are a sure way to quicken your economic entropy?

France gets a lot of benefit from the cachet of Brand France, tremendous food and fashion sales etc, but if that cachet withers they may be in trouble.

The big new consumers of their luxury goods (that would be China, if you're wondering) don't like to pay luxury prices for goods that are actually now being made in China. Yet France will increasingly have problems producing these goods in France for some of the reasons this article and comment thread cite.

Also, anecdotally, I have many, many French friends who have left France precisely to avoid the stifling work situations mentioned. They're thriving in more culturally-enlightened countries.

Marie_Claude in reply to the minimalist

wrong, the Chinese come to France to buy in french boutiques what their slave workers makes, because it's cheaper to buy these merchandises in france than in China !

Now, you don't know what are luxuous criteriums, they are the most controlled, if you find copie, they certainly have not the same quality, it's so that Jourdan shoes repatried their fabrication back to France, the Chinese could reach the finitions criteriums !


hmm, that concerns the upper positions !
If your read american blogs, it's exactly the same upper positions are for the Ivy league boys !

also theses position concern essentially the Administrations, and the biggest state and or former state enterprises, which don't represent the majority. In average and small enterprises, you can't afford to hire such people, and t'em they wouldn't like to work in small companies ! So the elite promotion there is a internal promotion !

Also your reference is rather taken from a "parisian" point of view !


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