The art of taking a break: Are the French always on vacation? • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] it’s time now for French connections our weekly look at the intricacies of life here in France with flance v Mano Hi Flo hi this week we’re going to focus on work life in France or rather the time that French people have off work because the French do actually have quite a bit of time off on vacation don’t they they should do uh compared to other countries France is very generous when it comes to annual leave at a minimum if you’re an employee you require 2.5 vacation days per month you work and that adds up to a minimum of 30 working days of annual leave and as you can see compared to other countries here that’s a lot uh it’s a lot more than other o oecd countries it’s and let’s not even talk about the United States it says zero there because the US is the only industrial country industrialized country where employers are not required to pay annual leave now that doesn’t mean that people don’t go on vacation it tends to be about 2 weeks in the states which is crazy for people here in France it’s simp not enough because as you can imagine the French are very fond of their vacation system now French people actually have their ancestors to thank for all this great vacation time paid vacation Le was voted into law in June 1936 it was an initiative of lular which was a coalition of leftwing parties led by Leon Bloom now in 1936 employees working in France were granted two weeks of time off and it was a real victory for the working class a cultural revolution in France because For the First Time vacation free time tourism all this became accessible to everyone and the summer of 1936 was really quite mythical footage of blue collar workers a heading to the beach heading camping for the first time all this was was caught on footage and it’s really gone down in National History because remember a lot of people had just never been on vacation before now in the 1950s it went up to 3 weeks four weeks in the 1960s and then ultimately 5 weeks in the 1980s so French people get minimum of 30 days off and then in addition there are extra days off as well that’s right because France is known for its 35-hour working week but the truth is a lot of people work more than 35 hours a week still 35 hours is the legal limit so any time extra that you work will you either get paid time off or you get something that’s called an rtt it’s our acronym it’s kind of like an extra vacation day and on top of all that there are bank holidays in fact a lot of foreigners who work here in in France sometimes they say they just have too much time off in France there are 11 public holidays per year and before you say that the French are lazy that is actually the European average some countries get more like Finland has 15 but you can see here the French bank holidays from New Year’s Day Easter Monday Etc all the way down to Christmas so these 11 days can fall at a different you know different day of the the year depending on the year and depending on how the cookie crumbles some years these public holidays can fall smack dab in the middle of a working week and that is a jackpot and it leads us to our word dour which is a very important Concept in France it’s a now A P literally is a bridge because if a public holiday falls say a Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday then you can do something called fa to build a bridge and to build a bridge what you have to do is take the day off between the public holiday and the weekend and you stretch it out into a long weekend and this is wonderful for employees but it can be a real headache for business owners uh when there are a lot of these p in a row which typically happens in the month of May for instance so uh it can be good for certain sectors however for instance the tourism sector [Music] [Music] and it’s not just roadside assistance workers who love most everyone does now that person just mentioned brings us to a very important Point Technically when French people are on vacation they shouldn’t be working and Company have to leave them alone by law that’s right it’s called the right to disconnect and it’s been part of the French labor code since 2017 so these are employees of companies of more than 50 employees well they have a right not to check their uh work email or their work phones outside of office hours during the weekends or on vacation that being said separating private life from uh working life has become a real headache especially now that more and more people are working from home this is called in France though some business owners have found that the key is to actually giving employees more flexibility So speaking about productivity this is a question that comes up a lot with so much time off how does anyone get any work done well shocking as it may be productivity in France is actually quite high if you look at at Labor productivity so that is the value of goods and services uh produced per hour per worker well France is on par with a lot of other EU countries and even not that far from the United States because after all a well-rested worker is a more productive worker absolutely Flo thank you so much for that look at all of the holiday time we have here in France don’t forget if you have your own questions about France or the French you can always reach out to Flo at uh flil manov or on social media or be sure to check out the web page

In this week’s show, we focus on working life in France, or rather the time that French people take off work. The French have the reputation of being on vacation a lot. Compared to other countries, France is very generous when it comes to annual leave. So what’s behind this phenomenon? On top of paid holidays, there are extra days off as well. All this begs the question: how does anybody get any work done?

Read more about this story in our article: https://f24.my/AImc.y

🔔 Subscribe to France 24 now: https://f24.my/YTen
🔴 LIVE – Watch FRANCE 24 English 24/7 here: https://f24.my/YTliveEN

🌍 Read the latest International News and Top Stories: https://www.france24.com/en/

Like us on Facebook: https://f24.my/FBen
Follow us on X (Twitter): https://f24.my/Xen
Browse the news in pictures on Instagram: https://f24.my/IGen
Discover our TikTok videos: https://f24.my/TKen
Get the latest top stories on Telegram: https://f24.my/TGen

24 comments

  2. In response to your question: I hope so. But then your statement "France is very generous…" is misplaced. The other countries are very stingy, particularly the country I am from, that shithole known as the US. So why not start off, "The US is very cheap and shamefully exploits their employees."

  5. Yes, the French take a lot of vacation. As a result they have too much to do during their working days. Most people are stressed out because there isn't enough time to finish their work from taking too much vacation. 🤣😂

  7. Sadly the U.S. has to fund its endless wars so it can’t let workers off. We also have the worse health care set up, expensive & mostly worthless.

  12. Comparison with other countries is not exact.
    I.e. 30 days in France = 5 weeks (counting 6 days/week)
    10 days in Canada= 2 weeks (counting 5 days/week, not 6)

  13. since the law was created in 1936 giving 30 days of paid vacation, France lost 20,000 factories in the first 10 years, and got invaded and taken over by Germany. Obviously it was German saboteur spies that did this in 1936 just like they programmed and released Lenin into Russia to destroy it in WWI

  21. The French did what they needed to set themselves up. The US f itself when it decided to leave benefits to individual employers. Sad to say, this was due to the unions (and of course, racism). Any American ever wonder why jobs in the private sector tends to have great benefits? Well, thats where most white workers were employed and you know they weren't about to let the government push equality on them. Yeah, y'all, we nearly had a system where the government would have mandated those things. Instead, cross your fingers and hope your job offers it. I have thankfully worked for employers who offered paid time off. My first employer was the only one that only had two weeks. Since, ive never had a job that didn't offer at least 4 weeks off, 10 days sick, and all the national holidays. I didn't even know elections day was a holiday until my current job.

Leave a Reply