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New French Law Gives Employees “The Right to Disconnect”

France’s new “right to disconnect” law mandates that a company with 50 employees or more cannot email an employee after typical work hours. According to True Activists, the country gives its employees 30 days off a year and 16 weeks of full-paid family leave; this latest initiative is only making France more popular.  According to BBC News, the new “right to disconnect” law will mandate that a company with 50 employees or more cannot email an employee after typical work hours. The amendment is largely a result of studies showing that people have an increasingly difficult time distancing themselves from the workplace.

Benoit Hamon of the French National Assembly states: “All the studies show there is far more work-related stress today than there used to be, and that the stress is constant. Employees physically leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash— like a dog. The texts, the messages, the emails — they colonize the life of the individual to the point where he or she eventually breaks down.”

What do you think of the controversial French labor law?