[hollerith]

The more difficult it is for the people living in a country to find work, the higher the productivity of the work force. For example, if only people able to obtain degrees from prestigious schools or able to succeed in low-paying internships that last for years because they have family to help them survive are able to get jobs, productivity will be high.

And France is known for make it hard for people to find jobs.

Productivity, in other words, is a measure of the value produced per hour worked.

If instead we look at the most often cited measure of value produced per resident, namely, GDP per capita, France is not doing better than Germany or the UK -- in either "nominal" GDP or GDP "purchasing power parity" according to the most recent World-Bank data.