German politicians and business leaders, despairing of a weak economy, are lately broaching a once taboo topic: claiming their compatriots don’t work enough. They may have a point. German Finance Minister Christian Lindner fired the latest salvo in this fractious debate last week when he said that “in Italy, France and elsewhere, they work a lot more than we do”.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a Green Party representative, grumbled in March about workers striking, something a country beset by labour shortages “cannot afford”. (Later that month, train drivers secured a 35-hour work week instead of 38, for the same pay.) Signalling his opposition to a four-day work week, Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Sewing in January urged Germans “to work more and work harder”.