M Breton said that reductions in social taxes on firms to compensate for a drop in the hours worked by their employees had cost an annual €20 billion for the past five years.

A spokesman for the minister said: “Since these reductions have been financed by loans, they have added to the national debt.”

The 35-hour working week, introduced by the former Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, in 2000, is at the centre of the debate ahead of next year’s presidential election.

The leading Socialist contender, Ségolène Royal, and her two challengers, Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, have all called for the 35-hour week to be extended to all workers.

Restaurant staff, for instance, have remained on a 39-hour week under a deal that was recently ruled illegal by France's highest court.

When overtime and holidays are taken into account, the average French employee works 1,459 hours a year, compared with 1,724 for the average US worker, according to the OECD.

However, in an interview with The New York Times, M Breton said: “With the 35 hours, you work less, you earn more. It’s a beautiful, a generous, idea. But who pays? Our children pay. We have to rethink the organisation of work time. People are going to have to work longer. French Socialists are the only people in the world who say work time must be cut.”

Last week, he attacked the head of the French Employers’ Federation, Laurence Parisot, for her failure to criticise the Socialist approach to working time. In turn, she pointed out that President Chirac’s Government had failed to scrap the 35-hour ceiling.

The cut in working time was imposed by M Jospin to try to cut France's unemployment rate, which has remained at about 9 per cent for the past decade. He said that if everyone worked shorter hours, companies would take on more staff.

The Socialist Party claims that the 35-hour week has created a total of 400,000 jobs since 2000, while the Employers’ Federation puts the figure at 200,000.

However, many economists say that it was the accompanying cut in social taxes that spawned job creation, and not the cut in working time. Under the package of incentives, employers obtained a cut of up to 85 per cent in social taxes for moving to the 35-hour week.

These taxes, which finance France’s welfare state, add about 50 per cent to the cost of employing a worker.

Although Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister and leading centre-right presidential candidate, has backed calls for a return to the 39-hour week, President Chirac has been reluctant to authorise this move. The President believes the French middle classes are attached to the shorter working week.

France’s national debt has tripled in three decades to more than €1 trillion.

HOW THE WORLD WORKS
Average working time around the world

Germany 1,444 hours a year

France 1,459 hours a year

United Kingdom 1,707 hours a year

United States 1,724 hours a year

Source: OECD

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