I know a majority of France works like this but there are some very cut throat work fields. I’m not saying this to oppose or prove you wrong but just to offer a perspective. My husband works with a lot of companies and start ups. While his colleagues usually stick to 35h work week, he refuses to leave the office before 8pm. And that’s him slowed down. Before it was 9, 10, 11… he travels frequently and goes back to work in the morning even if he arrived late at night. He pushes, pushes and pushes… sometimes accepts meetings with Americans at 9pm. After he gets back home already late, he spends around half an hour wrapping up and replying emails. Takes calls on weekends, public holidays and he hasn’t stopped working during our vacations. Yes, we take a month long time off during August but the poor thing works through it. I had to wait for him for an hour by the pool so that he can finish a call or an email to join me so many times. It’s unthinkable for him and his goals to manage his life any other way. But he’s extremely dissatisfied because he says that his projects gets shut down for small silly reasons, his bosses don’t respect his hustle and some of the higher ups are straight incompetent and some expect more from him but more in terms of things that you can easily overlook for an overachiever like him. They don’t appreciate his enthusiasm at all and weigh him down with small stupid dysfunctional stuff.

In our friends group, a guy founded his own tech start up and works on an even crazier schedule than my husband. He almost cannot function outside work. His wife has her own wellness brand and she takes appointments with her clients for 12h straight sometimes and travels once a month to offer her services elsewhere too.

Another lawyer friend started his own firm and I’ve witnessed him pulling 2 all nighters in a row.

Interesting thing is that, employers will expect results that can only be produced by people who work with this rhythm but shot down any efforts if anyone is working at this speed because those employees will also be highly demanding support, flexibility, responsiveness and compensation. I see those people as small groups of vigilantes trying to make it work in a hostile environment.

I’ve experienced this with my friends. They really don’t care and when we meet up, the conversation happens between the 2 of them about subjects that I’m not part of and I’m the 3rd wheel.

I totally understand everything you say and it looks like you gave it a real good chance, did everything there is to do in order to be part of the culture. If you still feel this way after all your efforts, I think it’s worth going back or somewhere else within or outside of US.

I also live in Paris and come from a bigger and more chaotic city than Paris. I know that I don’t wanna go back to my own city but I also know that I don’t want to stay in Paris forever. I felt really happy and at ease when I was in London. The Paris negativity was completely gone. People actually treated me like a human being. I miss that.