The repeal of the tax break on overtime reflects another economic fallacy to which French Socialist politicians are deeply attached: the “lump of labor” notion that underlay the most disastrous of their economic policies – the 35-hour workweek, introduced in 2000. The idea behind the policy is that demand for labor is a constant, and that this fixed number of aggregate working hours required by employers to meet final demand can be spread more evenly among workers to reduce unemployment.
加班费税收优惠的取消反映了法国社会党政客深陷其中的另一个经济学谬误：他们最具破坏性的经济政策——2000年实行的每周35小时工作制——体现了“劳动合成”（lump of labor）这一概念。这一政策背后的思想是劳动力需求是不变的，而雇主为满足最终需求所需要的这一固定数量的总劳动时间可以在工人之间更加平均地分配，以减少失业。