Word: frenchness
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There was a time not so long ago when U.S. fast-food giant McDonald's was viewed by European consumers as the advance scout of what the French loudly decried as American cultural imperialism. The Golden Arches, ran the prevailing European line, were a threat to the Continent's refined palates and appreciation of the civilized sit-down meal, and the livelihoods of people staffing "real" restaurants. Well, with the global economic crisis deepening, even the French aren't complaining nowadays - especially with news that McDonald's plans to invest more than $1 billion to keep its lucrative European business...
...Amid a Japanese-style setting of pinewood and granite, Iggy's pushes gastronomic boundaries, but never past the comfort barrier. "I don't serve food that shocks," says Ignatius Chan, the French-trained sommelier who started the cozy 38-seat restaurant four years...
Call it the law that just won't die. Six months after France's ruling Conservatives voted to gut the nation's famous 35-hour work week, anecdotal evidence suggests most companies are sticking with it. French corporations and smaller firms furiously denounced the Socialist's 1998 work-week reduction, and last year's law change allows employers to force staff to work longer hours. But most bosses appear to have stuck with the shorter week, to avoid disputes with leisure-loving employees, and, it seems, as a useful tool in dealing with the growing economic downturn...
...classic example of what the French call a pétard mouillé - or soggy firecracker that fails to explode. Few of the expected changes to the 35-hour week have materialized since France's Conservative government passed a measure in July designed to make it easier for bosses to force their employees to work more. The move retained the 35-hour week as the nominal legal reference to undercut union protest, but then rendered it nonsensical by giving employers a free hand to set far longer work requirements. So far, however, bosses haven't seen fit to make such...
...revision was a purely ideological effort to undo a landmark Socialist law, and ignored the fact most companies and workers don't want to change the 35-hour arrangement," says Eric Heyer, an economist and deputy director of the French Economic Observatory in Paris. "And by allowing companies to calculate employee time worked on a yearly rather than strict weekly basis as the previous law required, the 35-hour law provides businesses with badly needed flexibility to adapt to evolving activity at lower cost...