I willingly confess that I know very little about the French system; I've never worked in France and my entire adult life was spent in the US. I have however experience with the way things work in the US, or to be technical in Southern California.
I am pro-union (as we understand that term in America) in terms of providing a balance of power in big businesses, administering pensions, etc. (It's a great shame many unions became so corrupt but I digress.) My wife belongs to a Union and I do appreciate the role they play.
I also supported the notion of a government-supported healthcare system, and opposed the dismantlement of the so-called welfare system. (People forgot that Johnson's war against poverty actually worked.)
But employment at will, I will defend as being perhaps the most natural form of employment; I've been on both ends of it, have seen it practiced for 30 years, and frankly I don't understand any of your objections.
Perhaps the amount of job turnover here in the U.S. is not apparent from the European viewpoint. Few people spend their entire careers at one company. Many people change jobs every two years, and I'm not talking about burger flippers but professionals, factory workers, etc. It would be interesting to try to find statistics on this...
