Saclay is a French national nuke lab- like our los alamos... The researchers I was working with put in lots of overtime with no compensation, however many others there refused to do that... In fact one afternoon we were aligning a laser into a vacuum chamber and all of a sudden the floor started shaking, and then we hard whistled and shouts- my co workers didnt bat an eye but I went to the door to see what the hell was going on...

Several hundred lab employees were marching down the hall demanding a shorter work week- other employees were leaving their labs to join the march- The lead scientist I was working with explained what it was all about and made it clear how rediculous he thought it was... (The guys I was working with worked as late as was needed, so you cant take this as a generalization of ALL French)

Another shocker was the employee cafeteria... In a NUCLEAR lab they had bottles of wine for purchase in the cafeteria- Unthinkable at our national labs- though I have to admit that the food was INCREDIBLE, and they had damn good coffee- the real thing (we call it espresso)...

This coupled with the LONG vacation can only lower the output of their research institutions...