Das große Missverständnis der Vier-Tage-Woche

**Far from being accompanied by the initial promise of a reduction in working hours, this organization has very often resulted in an intensification of employees’ working days.**

Over the years, the “four-day week”, which promised a reduction in working hours at the end of the 1990s, has become the “week in four days.” It may not sound like much, but that distinction changes everything, since it ends up meaning “no reduction in working time.” At France’s Centre d’Études de l’Emploi et du Travail, sociologist Pauline Grimaud analyzed all 300 company agreements that mention the four-day week in 2023, 150 of which actually introduced it. She is categorical: “Less than one agreement in 10 reduces working hours. In the vast majority, these are negotiations that condense the week into four days.” According to the Ministry of Labor, by the beginning of 2023, 10,000 employees were experimenting with the new division of time “into” four days.

What happened? Wasn’t it all about working less? In 1996, the Robien law created the four-day week to counter mass unemployment by reducing working hours. It offered a 40% exemption from employer contributions in exchange for a commitment by companies to reduce working hours to 32 hours a week over four days, and to increase the number of permanent employees by at least 10%. Repealed in 1998, that law served as a preamble to the current 35-hour week. The idea, in both cases, was to share the available work between a larger number of employees, while improving living conditions. But most of the experiments carried out at the time ceased at the same time as the financial aid, which was interrupted when the law was repealed.

LDLC is one of the few pioneers to have made the formula permanent. By 2021, the company had estimated the cost of switching to four days at 5% of its payroll, but didn’t even have to recruit to compensate for the reduction in working time, so much so that productivity soared.

From the 2020s and the Covid-19 crisis onward, the approach changed. Employers, faced with a desertion of offices on Fridays, were increasingly interested in the four-day week, but without a reduction in the number of hours worked, which enabled them to gain in flexibility and attractiveness at lower cost. A model that the former French government, that of [Gabriel Attal](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/09/06/ex-prime-minister-gabriel-attal-leaves-office-with-eyes-on-the-future_6725049_5.html), had tried to establish in the civil service, consigning to oblivion the initial four-day week project and its kinship with the 35-hour week, which had been constantly criticized by some employers and the law, in the name of competitiveness.

**Read the full article here:** [**https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2025/01/13/the-great-misunderstanding-of-the-four-day-workweek_6736987_19.html**](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2025/01/13/the-great-misunderstanding-of-the-four-day-workweek_6736987_19.html)

Did anyone actually think the 4 day work week meant 32 hours? Everyone i know is smart enough to know it means 4 10’s.

5+ day work week is a hundred year model, required for manufacturing. Let that sink in.