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Sometimes people don’t believe me when I tell them this, but it’s a fact I often reference, especially when I’m working on people’s financial projections in their business plans.

And most Americans can’t fathom it.

It is possible for the French government to decline to naturalize you (after 5 years, being a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen, learning French, and meeting all other requirements) for one astonishing reason.

They can decline your naturalization request if you work too much.

Don’t believe me? I’m not surprised. But there have been several cases, in different departments, of otherwise-qualified applicants being refused because they regularly worked too many hours in a week/month/year.

Crazy, right?

So, when I help my clients with their business plans and financial projections, I tell them that we need to take into account the fact that they should really only be planning to work on paid client work a maximum of 20-25 hours per week, since full-time is considered 35 hours, and the maximum number of hours you can legally work in a week is 48. Plus, you can’t average more than 44 hours per week for more than 12 weeks.

So, let’s just hope that nobody counts my Facebook comments answering questions after-hours as work.