France serves as a warning sign of how government can crush entrepreneurship and job creation.

While U.S. total employment grew by 67% between 1970 and 1998, employment in France grew by only 10%. U.S. employment increased from 78.7 million in 1970 to 131.5 million in 1998, compared with a rise from 20.3 million to 22.3 million over the same period in France.

Why the anemic job creation? Well, an article in the October 18th issue of Time offers an answer. Regulations, taxes and mandated employment benefits drive the costs of labor sky high. In addition, Time reports, "Laying workers off is legally complicated and prohibitively expensive."

To make matters worse, France is about to reduce its mandated 39-hour work week to 35 hours, based on the misguided assumption that forcing workers to work fewer hours will somehow increase employment. In reality, of course, less work merely means less production, less income, less employment and a poorer society.

Time notes, "Lately there have been horror stories about the bureaucrats staking out office buildings at night and clapping fines on executives who toil more than the current limit of 39 hrs. a week."

Under such a regime, no threat exists that France might one day become an entrepreneurial and economic powerhouse.