La réduction du temps de travail en pratique

The Reduction of Working Time in Practice
Lets set aside the polemics which partisans and adversaries of the 35-hour week invoke, virtually on principle, and look at what could happen in practice. What forms could reduced work-time take, and what effects might follow?
The 35-hour week is not a magic number or rigid ideal. That is the first point emphasized by Savel and Gauthier, who show that reduced working time can take different forms : reduction in the length of the week, a flexible reduction within the year, an adjustable working week, or even a reduction spread over several years. Furthermore, each of these methods can be combined with different arrangements of the time in such a way that instead of a mechanical application of reduced work time, the real game lies in redeploymentand, according to all appearances, in the very strong diversificationof the amounts of time worked and in the hours of work themselves.
Thus presented, and illustrated with concrete examples, reduced work time looks like an opportunity to be seized, by business firms as well as by wage earners, to renegotiate the organisation of work while taking account of new economic constraints and social aspirations.
This seems almost too good to be true. But the authors issue the challenge to every enterprise, even to each shop, of finding the optimum formula, understood in financial terms. Since all the partners agree, however, on the necessity to innovate while taking account of the special requirements of each activity, the costs and benefits of reduced work time can be quite diversified and a positive-sum game for all parties.