Yet Gilles Saint-Paul, an economist at the University of Toulouse, adds that some of the increase in women's part-time work might be because their husbands' wages are frozen thanks to the 35-hour law.

ECONOMIST: Economics focus

Paul Seabright, an economist at the University of Toulouse in France, observes that trust in a modern economy has evolved to the miraculous point where people give complete strangers sums of money they would not dream of entrusting to their next-door neighbours.

ECONOMIST: Greed��and fear