GALLUS SLOTHERUS:

A French Employee's Work Celebrates the Sloth Ethic (CRAIG S. SMITH, Aug. 14, 2004, NY Times)

Finally, instead of dissembling behind ambiguous notions of Gallic joie de vivre, someone in this leisurely land has declared outright that the French should eschew the Anglo-Saxon work ethic and openly embrace sloth.

Corinne Maier, the author of "Bonjour Paresse," a sort of slacker manifesto whose title translates as "Hello Laziness," has become a countercultural heroine almost overnight by encouraging the country's workers to adopt her strategy of "active disengagement" - calculated loafing - to escape the horrors of disinterested endeavor.

"Imitate me, midlevel executives, white-collar workers, neo-slaves, the damned of the tertiary sector," Ms. Maier calls in her slim volume, which is quickly becoming a national best seller. She argues that France's ossified corporate culture no longer offers rank-and-file employees the prospect of success, so, "Why not spread gangrene through the system from inside?"

The book is a counterpoint to efforts by the country's center-right government to repair the damage done to French work habits by decades of Socialist administration, which enacted a 35-hour workweek. It is gaining in popularity just as the International Monetary Fund is urging Europeans to work longer and harder to stiffen their soft economies.

The French already work less than people in most other developed countries - on average, nearly 300 fewer hours a year than Americans, according to one study.

In many ways, Ms. Maier is typical of France's intelligentsia, overeducated and underemployed. She studied economics and international relations at the country's elite National Foundation of Political Sciences, or Sciences-Po, before earning a doctorate in psychoanalysis.

But she works just 20 hours a week writing dry economic reports at the state electric utility, Électricité de France, for which she is paid about $2,000 a month.

Remember what happened to the giant sloth when it came in contact with primitive peoples?

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 14, 2004 12:43 PM