True. In France, you get to spend many weeks of vacation with your kids. But then, you don't see them the rest of the year. Your choice (except that it's not really your choice, you can only change that by moving 5,000 miles away).
You really think that's the average story for both SF and Paris? Quite a lot of people actually live in Paris, and quite a lot of people have to commute in the Bay Area. I'm gonna make a guess that the average for the US is definitely higher than the average for France. And if I remember correctly, you'd have to go to South Korea or Japan to beat the weekly hours of the average US worker.
it's like this in all the big cities, and densely populated areas. the only place I know where its easy to spend time with your family is New Zealand, but the work is nowhere as interesting as is available in the bigger economies.