So which statements in the Telegraph article are lies according to you? It's much too easy to fob off statements you don't like by calling them lies.

As for the 35-hour week, I have nothing to suggest that it has destroyed jobs, but the jobs that the socialists promised would be created have not materialised. But it has frozen wages to compensate for the fact that employers suddenly had to pay more per hour worked. It has caused practical problems in small structures where you can't just hire 10% of a secretary to do the Saturday mornings in a small clinic, for example. So the doctor just has to do some more administrative and manual work himself. Even Royal has admitted that it's too inflexible.

As for your figures, I'm not going to research them in details, and I won't contest or confirm them either. You can present all the figures you like, but I'm personally living the misery created by the French system, and I'm listening to many others who are living the consequences too, whether they are unemployed, thrown out of the unemployment system, on RMI, trying to make a living out of casual jobs, self-employed, small business owners, homeless etc. It's personal misery after personal misery. If France's economic situation really were as good as you try to make it look, it wouldn't be misery all over the place.

As for the symbolic wealth tax that after press reports make nearly 2 French residents emigrate every day and thereby deprive the country of capital, I know from my working with expats that it nearly made a wealthy expat stay away instead of coming to France a year. It turned out that there was an exoneration for his nationality in a tax treaty, so he finally decided to come to France. The damages of the wealth tax far exceed the money it collects, but the dogmatic left prefer damaging employment and the economy rather than scrapping a damaging but symbolic tax. Wasn't it about time the French left got away from their holy cows and took a more pragmatic approach? It's the little guy who actually pays for the wealth tax because of the jobs and activity it ruins. Isn't it the socialists' vocation to look after the little guy?