I would say that leftwing has always been more proactive in searching to lower unemployment but are anyway responsible for lowering retirement age and pushing peole to universities.
When you look at what was accomplished in the 80's, (end of price control, of capital transfer restrictions, new stock exchange...) it's pretty impressive. On the contrary , I tend to think that rightwing is often too close to big corporations and money power, and tend to agree to their requests.
I also prefer to help the weak, because the strong always find a way

Considering 35 H, i think it is a courageous political act and on the whole beneficial to the economy short term because it brought flexibility and also ~ 200 000 jobs (controversy on the right number). And also leisure time
I don't know if it was beneficial in the long term, because the bad performances of our economiy, relatively to other european countries, after 2002 could be linked to what was made before (there's a lot of inertia)

But apart from theese small adapations, i really think that the european model is in great danger, because 1,3 billion people in China are in the line to get more purchasing power.

This war, "economical war" one used to say, cannot be won by lowering our low-qualified wages. We 're too far from them. So there's a need to be more productive

By "more productive" I mean raise production. And this means innovation and time-to-market through better use of NTIC