I find a lot of Euro economic data is supsect (even the Germans got caught cooking unemloyment statistics), but the French have a lot of natural advantages in a lot of luxury or top end products (think agriculture, haute couture, perfumes, cosmetics, etc.) and the EU has given them a much larger market in areas where they have a natural or historical monopoly. They have also bent or broken EU policy to their advantage whenever possible (think EU ag subsidies).
Their per-capita GDP is much lower than hours, but that is mainly due to the fact that they work a lot fewer hours than we do ( around 1450 vs. 1950 per year, if I recall) and because of the high unemployment.
If you have a decent job (like most French boomers do) and have some inherited property (like many do) you can live very well in France for someone with a modicum of education and not much ambition.
Americans may not take much official vacation time, but they work far less days than most of the euros. For every 1000 salaried employees, US workers miss 163 days, the French miss 117 days and the good old Brits only miss 21 days and on average only work 119 hours per year less than the average American!
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_day_off_wor-labor-days-off-work
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_hou_wor-labor-hours-worked