planet paris

I have spent the past 18 months wondering why it is impossible to market the same product simultaneously to French people and other Europeans and reached the conclusion that they are simply operating on a separate planet.
Last year I worked for the Russian state media, and we had fairly moderate success promoting Russian products in Western Europe and North America, but never in France, although at one point the company had brought in a French team specifically for that purpose. But as they had no luck, they soon became disheartened and quit. When I was interviewing for new jobs, one of the companies was actually looking for a French speaker to promote British material in France. Halfway through the interview, I called discussions to a halt, saying if France was to be my only market, I wasn’t interested. The woman doing the interviewing signed and nodded. In the middle of a recession, with mass unemployment and supposedly 50 people chasing every job, this position had been open for six months. Obviously no one wanted to touch a role clearly marked for failure. Yet as a French speaker, I kept getting offers somehow connected to that country. I finally accepted one trying to do the opposite: market French products into the rest of Europe. I have to say so far I am failing spectacularly. There is just no market for it. The material is of high quality, yet it remains fundamentally completely Francocentric: not in its direct orientation, but in the mental paradigm from which it is generated: the choice of subject matter and the way it is expressed it just completely French. I feel almost sorry for the research director: he dedicates endless hours to his job, and he takes pride in it….and seems truly puzzled as his ideas fall flat time and time again. I have tried to explain why I think certain plans and projects are not working, and he looks at me puzzled. “but it worked fine before,” he says in wonder. That was before when the company operated in France only. Before they got bought out by the people who employed me. Before they had to put up with teams of foreign consultants telling them what to do, and before they had to change.

working in france

Returning to my former home after several years working in England, I am struck by how at odds with the rest of the EU their working culture is. France is famous for its supposed 35 hour work week, and Sarkozy has faced tremendous opposition by suggestion that workers should be allowed to work more- if they want to. This world of professional laziness does exist- I have a friend who works for la poste, and she really does work 35 hours a week, get 6 weeks of holiday, lunch vouchers and an incredible pension plan. Looking at her, any Brit could only be but jealously snide. Yet alongside this workers’ paradise exists a separate reality: the small and successful private sector. It is a scary place. France has a few truly successful international companies that seem to think the only way to maintain their success is by treating their employees like slaves. Every time I visit our Paris office, I am shocked. Every one is at their desk by 9am and they stay there until 10pm or later. They still legally get several weeks holiday, but they often refuse to take it because of pressure from management. No one in Britain would put up with the working conditions such French employees endure, nor would any Brit tolerate the often harsh and disrespectful manner in which French bosses treat their inferiors. The contrast here between the private and public sector is too great to be healthy, in fact it appears dangerous. As I look at the newspapers, the scandal rages over the suicides at France telecom: the company was state owned until a few years ago when it was privatised and new management brought in. Since then the suicide rate has soared in the company, with over 25 deaths in the past year alone. Many took place actually on the job, and many left letters citing their working conditions as the reason.
No one should lose their mental health over a job. Yet if France is to address this issue, it will have to start by recognising there is a gulf of incomprehensible proportions between national rhetoric and corporate reality.