Olivier Blanchard writes:

The French are not lazy. They just enjoy leisure more than most (no irony here)

And this is perfectly fine: As productivity increases, it is perfectly reasonable to take it partly as more leisure (fewer hours per week, earlier retirement age), and only partly in income.

He has follow-up points and clarifications in later posts. For instance:

If somebody, in France, wants to work hard, retire late or not all, and work 50-60 hours a week, it is perfectly possible. (this conclusion is based on introspection). Some of us are blessed with exciting jobs. Most of us unfortunately are not.

Here is JFV on that question. And a response from Olivier. Here is John Cochrane.

Perhaps “lazy” is not the right word for this discussion. I view West Europeans in general as providing good quality work per hour, but wanting to work fewer hours, compared to Americans and also compared to many East Asians. Much of that is due to taxes, noting that tax regimes are endogenous to the mores of a population. (Before the 1970s, West Europeans often worked longer hours, by the way.) So it is not only taxes by any means. Furthermore, many (not all) parts of Europe have superior leisure opportunities, compared to what is available in many (not all) parts of the United States. That seems to me the correct description of the reality, not “lazy,” or “not lazy.”

I would add some additional points. First, the world is sometimes in a (short?) period of local increasing returns. I believe we are in such a period now, as evidenced by China and the United States outperforming much of the rest of the world. Maybe the French cannot do anything to leap to such “large economy margins,” but I am not opposed to saying “there is something wrong” with not much trying. Perhaps lack of ambition at the social level is the concept, rather than laziness. I see only some French people, not too many to be clear, throwing themselves onto the bonfire trying to nudge their societal norms toward more ambition.

Second, although the world is not usually in an increasing returns regime, over the long long run it probably is. We humans can stack General Purpose Technologies, over the centuries and millennia, and get somewhere really splendid in a (long-run) explosive fashion. That is another form of increasing returns, even if you do not see it in the data in most individual decades in most countries.

That also makes me think “there is something wrong” with not much trying. And on that score, France can clearly contribute and to some extent already is contributing through its presence in science, math, bio, etc. The French even came up with an early version of the internet. Nonetheless France could contribute more, and I think it would be preferable if social norms could nudge them more in that direction. I do not see comparable potent externalities from French leisure consumption. Maybe the French could teach America how wonderful trips to France are, and thus induce Americans to work more to afford them, and if that is the dominant effect I am happy once again.

So on the proactive side, it still seems to be France could do better than it does, and social welfare likely would rise as a result. That said, they hardly seem like the worst offender in this regard, though you still might egg them on because they have so much additional high-powered potential.