They were fully prepared to turn the working populace into slave labor and then the government was shocked to see that descision was unpopular.
One thing that catches my eye about this article is that the Guardian specifies “young people” as the cause for the pushback, Gen Z and Millennials, as if everyone else would be perfectly fine working until they fucking die. Just more “Zoomers bad” rhetoric.
I think it’s THE longest or it already was few years ago when i checked. Far ahead of Japan, which is usually cited as the worst.
Btw. Do you know who was the first in EU? Greeks. Yes, the people accused by all reddit and ghoul media of being “lazy”.