In the interview on Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio, Michael Fuchs, a Deputy leader of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, labelled France as „a problem child in the euro” and added that “the French need to do their homework”. He is convinced that the French government should make a 35-hour workweek last for 40 hours like in Germany or even 42 hours like in Switzerland.
Furthermore, Mr Fuchs called on the French government to increase the retirement age because, as he said, it is simply impractical to send people to pension at the age of 60. He also noted that „other countries have done their homework a lot more intensively - for example, Spain and Italy under Monti, but the French believed they could escape this“.
Michael Fuchs is not the only one to bash the social policy of the French government. This week Maurice Taylor, Titan International Inc Chairman, wrote a letter to French Minister of Industrial Renewal Arnaud Montebourg blaming the government for unwillingness to foster business development, overwhelming in-fluence of the labour unions and low labour productivity. “The French workforce gets paid high wages, but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three hours," he wrote.
The Titan International Inc CEO refused to buy the Goodyear plant with a question: „How stupid do you think we are?” and explained that it is clearly better to purchase a Chinese or Indian company, pay each employee less than a euro per hour and “ship all the tires France needs”.
Arnaud Montebourg declined to comment on the letter saying he did not want “to harm the interests of France”.
