In France, being late for work is a form of advance retirement

Telegraph

04-05-2025

'In precisely six and three-quarter minutes the damned fella will be late,' says Nancy Mitford 's Uncle Matthew, grinding his teeth as he waits by his trout stream for the Chubb Fuddler to arrive.
Being late for an appointment is a certain way to enrage the person who is made to wait – even (or perhaps especially) if they are habitually unpunctual themselves. Lateness says, 'My time is more important than yours,' which is why celebs have transformed it into something approaching performance art, turning up ever more extravagantly late, with ever more preposterous excuses.
Impressively late for a breakfast television interview, the reality star Gemma Collins complained that the 'helicopter didn't turn up on time', while the rapper Lauryn Hill, notorious for pitching up late to her own concerts, explained in a social media post that 'the challenge is aligning my energy with the time'. Goodness knows, we've all had that problem.
The groundlings kept hanging about by these effigies of self-importance have little option but to twiddle their thumbs while their own time slips uselessly away. But lateness can also be an effective means of subversion.
Go-slows and working to rule have traditionally been used by disgruntled workers to signal their discontent with decisions by politicians or bosses. But in France a trio of creative directors known as the Zélé collective have come up with a sophisticated reimagining of the go-slow as a satirical protest against President Macron's pension reforms.
Two years ago, when Macron forced through legislation to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, the French populace made its feelings clear in the usual way. There were strikes and protests across the country, at which effigies of the President, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, and other ministers were burned.
So far, so French. But the Zélé collective's protest is an altogether slicker affair. On Instagram, an AI -generated Minister for Latecomers - young and handsome, with a hint of designer stubble and a carefully cultivated air of gravitas - addresses the nation.
'Français, Françaises', he intones, 'today we launch a citizens' movement against the retirement reforms by taking back our mornings'. Every minute that employees turn up late to work, he explains, is an act of resistance, reclaiming the leisure stolen by the pension reforms. A link is provided for workers to calculate precisely how many minutes of daily delay are required to redress their personal balance.
Despite the pension reforms, the OECD's Global Life-Work Balance Index for 2024 still had France in 13th place; while the UK, where we must labour until 66 (rising to 67 next year and eventually to 68), was 15th. So on this side of the Channel, it is hard to feel much solidarity for the French workers, freed from toil at a comparatively youthful 64. Charles-Antoine De Sousa of the Zélés admits that the campaign is largely symbolic. 'But if we don't protest, one day we will wake up and find that we, too, have to work until we are 67'.
Time, as everyone from Hippocrates to the authors of self-help books ('Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting') is keen to remind us, is a precious commodity. If we waste it, as Shakespeare's Richard II bitterly reflects, it will waste us. There, at least, we can agree with the virtual Minister for Latecomers.