No Business Emails, Texts or Phone Calls After 6PM: Vive La France!

It may be 24-7 in your office but that's your problem.

The 35 hour week became law in France 15 years ago and still exists. To top it off, the French have just passed a law mandating that personal time is a serious matter. No emails, texts or phone calls from  the office are permitted after 6PM on weeknights. And dont even think about the weekend.

As idyllic as this may sound to some, France is having trouble retaining entrepreneurs, let alone attracting them. What many Europeans refer to as 'the Anglo-Saxon model,' meaning lots of work and little play is becoming more of the norm, especially in the tech economy.

The French law does not apply to all of its citizens, only those in certain occupations. But un garcon can dream, n'est-ce pas? JL

Lucy Mangan reports in The Guardian:

A new labour agreement in France means that employees must ignore their bosses' work emails once they are out of the office and relaxing at home – even on their smartphones

Just in case you weren't jealous enough of the French already, what with their effortless style, lovely accents and collective will to calorie control, they have now just banned bosses from bothering them once the working day is done.
Well, sort of. Après noticing that the ability of bosses to invade their employees' home lives via smartphone at any heure of the day or night was enabling real work hours to extend further and further beyond the 35-hour week the country famously introduced in 1999, workers' unions have been fighting back. Now employers' federations and unions have signed a new, legally binding labour agreement that will require employers to make sure staff "disconnect" outside of working hours.
Under the deal, which affects around 250,000 employees in the technology and consultancy sectors (including the French arms of Google, Facebook, Deloitte and PwC), employees will also have to resist the temptation to look at work-related material on their computers or smartphones – or any other kind of malevolent intrusion into the time they have been nationally mandated to spend on whatever the French call la dolce vita. And companies must ensure that their employees come under no pressure to do so. Thus the spirit of the law – and of France – as well as the letter shall be observed.
That's right. While we poor, pallid, cowering Brits scurry about, increasingly cowed by the threat of recession-based redundancy and government measures that privilege bosses' and shareholder comfort over workers' rights, the continentals are clocking off. While we're staring down the barrel of another late one/extra shift/all-nighter, across the Channel they're sipping sancerre and contemplating at least the second half of a cinq à sept before going home to enjoy the rest of that lovely "work/133-hours-per-week-of-life" balance.
C'est all right pour some, quoi?