France Bans Work Emails After 6 P.M.

AP Photo/Francois MoriGoogle's French workers will be affected by the new law.

French workers have long enjoyed shorter workweeks and plenty more vacation time than Americans. Now, one million workers in France will be free of any work-related emails or phone calls after 6 p.m., The Guardian reports.

Unions and employers there have signed an agreement stipulating that no work communications are sent after work hours. The deal affects a portion of the technology and consultancy sectors and includes the French branches of Google, Deloitte, and PwC, according to The Guardian.

The plan is the culmination of labor unions' six-month effort to maintain the 35-hour workweek famously signed into national law in 1999. The unions argued that bosses were infringing on workers' rights by contacting them via mobile devices after hours.

The 35-hour workweek does not necessarily mean that France stops operating by the time the sun's down. The limit serves as a threshold for when overtime or rest days kick in.

Yet, as this chart from the economics website FRED shows, the French (represented by the red line) still work notably less than Americans (blue). Their hours are similar to other members of the Eurozone, and the French put in more annual hours than the Germans (green):

FRED