LONDON -- For Americans who work long hours, get only two weeks holiday a year, and live under a system that defines job security as a socialist vice, the apparent success of the French experiment is a puzzle and an affront.
For Japanese, who work even longer hours, don't dare to take even the miserable ration of holidays they are entitled to, and are dismantling their old system of lifetime jobs, it is as alien as the work patterns of the Ottoman seraglio.
But it seems to be working.