MNs living/working in France

[furrybootsnotjandals]

Hopefully I am in the right thread here, bit of background, we live in NZ but I'm Scottish and DH is French, we have 2 children. Every three years we leave NZ to live for 6 months in France- we've done this for the past 6 years and the kids have spent 6 months at schools here, all up.
I love my life in NZ but I know DH really wants to come back to France and I like living in France, too. What I'd like to know is how easy do other (non-French) parents find it living and working in France? I have the impression that they work longer hours here, is that true?
And for those working here, can I be REALLY nosy and ask what you do and how easy it was for you to find your job, what is the work/life balance like with kids etc etc Basically any experiences you can share would be great. Oh, we (me and the kids) are fluent French speakers, too.

You might get more responses if you post this on the Living Overseas topic, there are a few people on there who live in France.

I can't really help re. the work / life balance as I am in an area that relies heavily on tourism. A lot of people here work crazy hours from May - September and then don't do much for the rest of the year. This is not typical of the rest of France though.

The working week is limited to 35 / 39 hours, and overtime is compensated in the form of extra holidays. One thing I have noticed is that in quite a lot of offices they have a long lunchtime (an hour, or an hour and a half) so finish later than they otherwise would. Plus it's quite common to have Wednesday afternoon off like the schoolchildren do, again this means longer hours on other days. This is in my experience of a small town, it is prob different in Paris & larger cities.

It's quite difficult to use foreign qualifications in France, although you may be OK if you have relevant experience, it depends on the job.

Thanks for that Scouserabroad, and for your advice about posting in living overseas- will try that,too. I know what you mean about the lunchbreak thing- DH says they work less than we currently do, but for me I would rather have a short lunchbreak and finish work earlier...thanks for your advice.