It is wishful thinking that policy makers understood (or even understand today) the 'tradeoff' or have any real awareness of the systematic effects of said labour policies.
Many of the 'side effect' realities, for example as cited by the OP are very real, and go somewhat unmeasured or sidelined.
Europe is not doing very well, it's treading above water, fumbling from crisis to crisis without any obvious pathways out. After the US-driven 2008 crisis, there were years of serious problems with the Euro, to the point wherein Italian banks (and others) were teetering on failure, two national governments were overthrown by the EU (Greece, Italy) there was a major migration crisis ... and then COVID hit. All of this with very problematic demographics, a rising China and an antagonizing US - it does not bode well.
That France (and arguably Spain and Italy) did not undergo similar labour reforms similar to 'sick man of the 1990's Germany' has created ongoing damage.
It's not all a 'one sided story' but there need to be intelligent labour reforms.
The commenter echoes real sentiments across the business community with respect to hiring, even if it's not so perfectly accurate - 'firing' people in France is actually very difficult and a legit barrier to anyone wanting to expand there, among other things.
People don't need to take a year off when they have children. They can, at some reduce pay perhaps, that would be a nice option, but the community doesn't need to share most of that burden.