Honestly I think France is somewhat exceptional there, with the rioting for workers rights.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it does seem unusually French.

From what I can tell the workers rights situation in France really does dissuade some companies from setting up there.

France's exceptionalism was that people had time to riot. Most countries drown their precariat in work and cortisol. France has shorter weekdays so even well-to-do people can protest. This is no longer exceptional to France; the pandemic has dramatically increased the number of Americans who are both unemployed and have the resources to protest. That's why we get riots every few months and why those riots are not unique to one particular political movement anymore.

I mean, France is possibly an extreme case here, but in most developed countries this would be pretty unthinkable (assuming it really is a law that just allows small businesses fire people without notice in normal circumstances; firing people without notice for gross misconduct or due to liquidation is generally allowed, though in the liquidation case the employees would then usually be creditors for the notice pay that should have been paid in most places).

Yeah I agree it's not good. I was disturbed enough to hear about "at will" rules in the US and that seems like more of the same.

I think there would be a lot of noise in the press about it here, but I don't think riots in the streets would be part of it!

Australia is very apathetic in general. "She'll be right" is basically our national motto and while it can be good for overcoming external adversity and natural disasters, I don't think it's serving us too well when dealing with internal human and political factors.