4000 work related heart attacks in France per year

[idun]

Or so they said on tv tonight.

In fact one bloke is sueing his company for causing his stress and subsequent heart attack.

 

Which once again proves that France is just a country without automatic access for all, to a better quality of life.

 

[Rabbie]

What are the figures for other european countries?

[idun]

I wish that they had said, but they didn't.

Stress at work, there are so many reasons aren't there. Endless. The most stressed person I ever worked with was absolutely useless at their job, which they had been in for 20 years. So who's fault was that, them not pulling their socks up? or management getting onto them for poor work? I have known other stressed people who have been great at their jobs and been overloaded with work as the management knew that they would do their usual good job.

Stress, such an easy term to use and many reasons behind it........... in any country.

 

[5-element]

Some working conditions in France are undoubtedly dreadful, and for a number of people,  devastating and with tragic consequences.... yet I am a little cagey about that sort of categorisation, and wonder how often French people might acknowledge "stress" as something that happens also in their private lives... it seems so much more acceptable to hang it onto external factors such as work, than to start questioning closely your close relationships, marital or domestic life, own psychic make-up, etc... self-awareness is not always very high on the agenda, as so many people here seem to prefer to think of "problems" as a medical condition requiring medication, rather than emotional difficulties that  should be addressed as such. Apart from that blanket term of "stress", there is also "nerves" - i.e., something physical as well. Talking therapies are far less common here than they are in some other places - counselling doesn't even translate in French, and going to see a "psy" does carry quite a stigma.

That this should be the case doesn't trivialise the primitive and sometimes barbaric nature of hierarchies in the French world of work and management. It is heartbreaking to hear some of the stories.

[NickP]

Probably most of the attacks were caused by people being asked to do overtime or to cut down their two hour lunch break. [:D] [:D]

[Chancer]

No-one would disagree that stress is a contributary factor and can tip someone over the edge but what about all the underlying conditions?

Overweight, high blood pressure, malbouffe, alcohol, tobacco, high blood pressure, sedentary lifestyle, family history of cardiac problems etc etc?

Looking at most people around me, the syndicalistes, the fonctionaires, pretty much everyone who cannot be sacked, many of whom milk the stress card to get even more time off than their ample holidays, its the employers that suffer the stress trying to keep the business afloat, I reckon RSI is responsible for far more stress than French employers.

Possibly the French mindset cannot cope with change or adapt in the same way as other races, possibly the rest of us have lived with it for so long that it becomes normal, I do recall when I started work for a large company that  people would retire every month with 50 years service, many of them dropped dead quite soon after, fate or inablility to cope with  a long anticipated change?

What was telling was that not long after in the early 80's the market and workplace changed fundamentally, there would be rounds of redundancy pretty much every year, the job for life was no more, it would be last in first out and then enforced early retirement, these were people made to go at the most 3 years before their scheduled time with very generous packages far more lucrative than working out their remaining time, a very large percentage of these (predominately) guys suffered fatal heart attacks soon after, far more than the retirees.

The global market has changed, the rest of the world woke up and adapted to this 30 years ago, France is just beginning to, very begrudgingly.

I watched a spokesman for the new ferry service with ex-Seafrance employees, he was saying that the ex employees had  learned from the past and had changed, from now on they were going to embrace modern working conditions and be 100% customer focussed, well time will tell................................