This inscription, on a wall on the rue de Seine, dates back to the first months of 1953 (a neighbouring inscription which falls under traditional politics helps to date with the surest objectivity the mark of that which interests us: calling for a demonstration against General Ridgway, it cannot be later than May 1952). The inscription that we reproduce here seems to be the most important mark to ever turn up on the site of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, as testimony to a particular way of life that was asserted there.
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First published in Internationale Situationniste no. 8, January 1963. Translated from the French by Anthony Hayes, July 2013. A scan of the original piece from page 42 of IS no. 8 is available here.
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Yes, the slogan could be said to call into question the spirit with which it was and any imperative is written. Was the writing itself work on some level? Not so, it insists.
The meaning of your first sentence is unclear. And in the second, if you mean ‘was the writing of the slogan waged work?’, then patently the answer is no. Marx differentiated from purposeful activity that appears under different historical forms, and labour or work considered generally. Debord followed this critical insight.