The EU directive put a legal up limit on the number of hours you can work yes. But this limit is quite high. Besides, this limit does not apply when the person goes home and work in the evenings from there on her own will (and for certain positions, that's frequent).

Secondly, it's especially written in the law that with the "cadre" status, you are to work a number of days annually, not hours (it's called "au forfait" if I'm not mistaken).