France is more productive per capita (edit: the reference I found was from 2009, France is currently slightly less productive than the US per capita[1]) and has a higher quality of life than the US. Consider improving your mental model and recognizing you are not as well off and productive as you believe. Japanese workers spend a lot of time at their desks too, but not that productive! Data > emotions, work to live don’t live to work, all that jazz.

Recent on topic thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31690239

[1] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/02/25/french-workers...

Really? US seems to be more productive: https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

Comment edited to reflect I used an older data source. Thanks for correcting me!

Follow up: where does the majority of US productivity go (short answer: shareholders).

What on earth are you on about? I said nothing about per capita productivity or quality of life. I said I'd rather have more free time at home instead of an additional hour of lunch time.

Why can’t you have both? That is my thesis, and I’m attempting to support it with data using a first principles approach. If productivity is high enough, why does that time delta warrant material consideration?

If an employer wants me to be in the office for X hours, I'd prefer those hours not to be spread out by ninety minutes. If they don't want me to be in the office for X hours I'm probably working from home.

Consider that aggregates may not scale down to every individual. Data > Statistics

Also true! But we have to have an agreement on foundational facts to have a cogent debate of ideas. Preferences aren’t facts, but are still welcome.

If you want to eat at your desk while I have a 90 minute lunch with wine and good company, that’s okay, life is about choices. We are optimizing differently.

It’s interesting that you seem to take the OP as trying to optimize productivity.

I assume this because you first point out that French culture is more productive, and then link to the discussion about toxic productivity.

But to me, it sounds like they just prefer to defragment their day regardless of productivity.

I think the whole idea of escaping toxic productivity is to not worry about maximally optimizing it in the first place. I’d bet you’re both on the same page about that.

Frenchman here. I leave the office at 6pm at the latest, and I take 2 hour lunch breaks everyday. :)

Just scheduled my time off for the year, 46 days off, not counting week-ends and national holidays. Please someone save me from this oppressive regime!

That's not informative at all without knowing when you arrive.

Daily meeting is at 9h30. I generally show up a bit before that if in office, or log on a bit before that if WFH. 9 at the earliest, generally closer to 9h15, 9h20. :)

> Frenchman here. I leave the office at 6pm at the latest, and I take 2 hour lunch breaks everyday. :)

Good for you - not for me.

I do intermittent fasting. I often eat by 4pm.

Should I need the government authorization to eat at my desk at 4pm? (or leave at 4pm to eat at home which is equivalent to you leaving at 6pm after a 2h lunch break)

Or would I need to take a 2h break I don't want to?

Government regulation of lifestyles is acceptable when you have an extremely homogeneous population and culture: this can work in Japan. This might work in France. This sure won't work here in the US.

Hello straw man. Read the story and the other comments. No one's forcing you to not eat at your desk in France, it's just making companies give the option not to.

Not eating after 4pm is a very very rare condition in the entire world. I wouldn't expect everyone, or anyone, to take that into consideration of any policy.

> No one's forcing you to not eat at your desk in France, it's just making companies give the option not to.

Can you point out where the article says that? All I see is "The government's answer: ban lunch in the workplace."

What you see is clickbait. It's perfectly legal to skip lunch and go home earlier or work remotely and so on.

It's not clickbait. You may be able to skip lunch altogether but you can't eat it at your desk:

> Until now, any company allowing employees to eat lunch at their desks was subject to a fine if discovered by the inspectors who enforce the labor code. The employee in question faced unspecified disciplinary action.[0]

The "until now" refers to the suspension of the law in 2021 to promote social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That suspension has since expired, so eating at one's desk is once again prohibited.

The actual law is Article R4228-19: "Il est interdit de laisser les travailleurs prendre leur repas dans les locaux affectés au travail."[1] Google translates this as "It is forbidden to allow workers to take their meals in the premises assigned to the work."

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/world/europe/france-desk-...

[1] https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...

It's also nice to spend time with the colleagues. Especially as we're only in the office one or two days a week now. I like it, though we don't spend 90 minutes but one hour. We always go to a restaurant off-site and have a 3 course meal with a beer for who wants it.

PS I'm in Spain not France but similar culture. But here you can eat at the desk if you really want to.

Also I go to France regularly and people do eat at their desks there. Some people just like to or they're forced to because of cross-timezone meetings. Like most of these protectionist laws (like not being allowed to email out of work hours) they're only for show and not actually enforced. France is a bit weird like that.

I'd at least like the choice as to whether I want to spend those 90 minutes with my colleagues, friends, or family, though...

if you were in france you’d probably be taking the long lunch and still going home early

> Yuck. Of course it creates more productivity, they're sucking free time out of my evening and injecting into my work day

Here's the thing: a lot of firms consider lunch working hours.

I was confused by the practice at first but in tech oftentimes there's a lot of technical discussions happening. And since the French are more hierarchy conscious than Americans, lunch represents a break where ideas can flow more freely.

Technical discussions during lunchtime? Rarely ever see this as a normal activity.