I've been living here for 7 years, worked for 3 different companies. I suppose I have a bit more anecdotes than your dozen of times.

There are places are people don't seem to do anything. But it's hardly a France-only occurrence. There are only plenty of companies where you are expected to work hard and deliver results; again, hardly France-only.

I love it when some casual observations from a visitor become trusted source of generalisation for a whole country.