Apparently this French agreement has been misreported and overblown. The agreement is not a law and only effects ~200,000 high level tech executives that already work about 78hours a week. It's funny when buzzfeed fact checks The Guardian.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/marietelling...-afte?s=mobile
My work schedule is 8-5. I knock off as soon as I hit the quota assigned for me by my company bc there is no incentive to do more. I have learned this over years. My husband works long hours as a pharmaceutical company clinical scientist. His hours are dependent on the work going on at the time. He gets upwards of 500 emails a day and does a lot of work from home including checking emails. They resent their European colleagues not for jealousy over time off but because they delay things getting done because they are never there. Subsequently, the American team works harder to make up for it. For years, my husband talked about getting a job in industry with the goal of us moving to Europe. Now, he'd rather die. LOL.