They may choose a job nearby to avoid having to deal with shitty transports every day.

It's more just the option - a short commute is amazing. It makes an enormous difference in work and life satisfaction. They have the mixed zoning so you could find a cheap apartment or a three story house with a big yard without paying for it with 2 hours of your life every day

Their public transportation is great too... Even with a car, it's just so much faster and more convenient most of the time. You just hop on and off with very little waiting. It's cheap too, it was like 25 Euros a month for unlimited metro and bus rides, and even in the center of the city on a weekend it's less crowded than DC is in the middle of a weekday

But I think the French culture is about enjoying life as much as possible.

This is just a tangent, but I don't think that's quite right... They actually say "c'est la vie" like they're trying to convince themselves they can accept things

They have plenty of problems, there were two or three murders within my walking distance in a couple months... Not like it was an unsafe area, people just flipped out on family members and co-workers. One just (mostly) decapitated someone with a katana in an office over a fine or something. They're constantly fighting over politics and culture, they share public spaces but you'll see tons of people sitting alone carefully not interacting with each other - they're very closed off in a lot of ways. Work-life balance is really what they've got going for them. That certainly leaves a lot more time for family and hobbies (which is huge), but I wouldn't describe them as happy exactly... Some definitely do make the most of it, but a lot of people don't

It's more that they draw a very hard line between "acceptable" and "not acceptable", but it's a constant fight. They take their time eating good food and enjoy their outdoor time, but a lot of them are isolated and/or bitter. They're going through the same stuff we are, but they've had more to lose

But that's just my take away, and it's not like I saw much of the county