Eating at your desk is banned in France | Hacker News Reader

Eating at your desk is banned in France

npr.org

75 pointsJugurtha82 comments

This is one of the reasons why I love to work from home. I'm not beholden to company policy that seeks to improve productivity at the expense of how I choose to structure my day.

Maybe I eat at my desk so I can spend that hour lunch break with my kid in the afternoon. Maybe I'll take a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day because I didn't sleep well the previous night. I'm so glad to be rid of these inflexible, petty rules that are for the average, not the individual.

This.

I eat at my desk because I want that break time to do something else that actually matters to me and furthers my own personal goals

In some places this can develop into the expectation that everyone eats while working at their desk every day. You're not shifting the free time, you're just losing it. Then anyone who announces "okay, off to a cafe, see you in an hour" is seen as slacking.

Yes. I see this law as a way to protect employees with less agency.

Nobody will actually enforce it, but employee will know that eating at a normal pace and taking a breather is an option.

This article is clickbaity.

no lunch police will come knock at the door once you start eating your salad.

It’s more about forcing workplace to provide a dedicated space with a table, a fridge … the minimal amenities to have a civilized lunch. Establish rapport with your coworker, or focus on your cold pasta salad to reach mindfulness.

If you want to save 2min40s and develop a ulcers, you are free to do so.

Exactly. I often visit offices in France and people do eat at their desks there sometimes. There is no salad police. Going out to a nearby restaurant is big though. And I love doing it if there's time. It really makes the lunch break an actual break.

He's not going to get ulcers. He works from home and isn't beholden to corporate rules.

That said, a nice kitchen is nice.

The article isn't clickbaity in the slightest - it's illegal to eat your lunch at your desk in France. That's a fact.

Something illegal is still illegal. Relying on non-enforcement at some companies is absolutely absurd - not only is enforcement of something like this going to vary (so some poor unlucky souls won't have the option at all), but you open yourself up to selective enforcement.

It feel blindingly obvious that the correct thing to do is to remove this ridiculous law, and then, if you want "the minimal amenities to have a civilized lunch" - then legislate that, not some absurd illiberal law that removes a choice that is very desirable for some people.

I say this as someone who sometimes wants to eat lunch at my desk so I can get off earlier, and other times will go out to eat with co-workers and enjoy their company. There's no reason to not give me that choice.

> One female labor inspector noted in her report of 1901 that women saw the enforcement of the law as "tyrannical."

Tyrannical indeed.

How many lunches did you have at work in France ?

I would say I had a few thousands, so let me speak from experiences

- You can eat how you want, rest assured you have the choice to eat at your desk if you wish to do so. Again, the lunch police is not gonna burst at your office because of that.

- the breakdown of amenities is already settle legally ( the more employee, the more amenities. Threshold at 10, 50 and 100 employees.)

As a French elector, I like that law being in place. You should become a citizen and find a representative to vote against it.

Ulcers don't develop from "bad eating habits", that's old wife's tale. Please don't spread misinformation, someone might take this seriously.

Yeah fair, going forward I will postface my messages here with a warning about medical and financial advices.

IMO the bulk of this is due to workplace culture, not being remote. Naturally being at home adds some logistical flexibility, but the bulk of the gap is between companies who treat their employees like toddlers and those who actually respect them as adults (see also: dress code for non-customer-facing work, overly-fixed hours, etc). You can see this distinction in the slow creep of employee-monitoring software over the last couple of years, where being remote doesn't save you (though I would guess that this is unlikely to take hold).

On the flipside, there are workplaces who avoid this form of contempt for their employees without being remote. My in-office job at eg Google had the majority of the flexibility you're describing, including the naps! The other companies I've been at didn't have the same resources as the Googleplex, but still trusted me to understand best what determined my productivity. Perhaps I've been spoiled, but I truly can't imagine working somewhere that was so openly disrespectful of my ability to do my job effectively; I'd feel like a McCashier or something.

On the axis of workaholism, this French law and, say, Goldman Sachs may be on opposite sides of the spectrum. But on the axes of treating employees like children, they're two sides of the same coin.

Disagree on that law treating employee as children. It treats employers as such.

« Oh really company? you can’t have some common sense decency in regard to lunch? Alright, I will spell it out for you »

From the worker side, nobody will come to say anything if you decide to put grease on your keyboard and stain your shirt during lunch time. You are free to do so.

Companies aren't people, legal fictions aside. They're machines with a fitness function which minimizes a dollar/production function.

They can't have "common sense".

Exactly. Hence the much needed hand holding of laws and regulation to help their cost optimizing function see the light of reality.

A programmer I know worked in Germany for a while when younger. He did not mention any laws, but said that it never occurred to anyone to eat at the desk--it just wasn't done.

Ninety minutes, free-flowing conversation, perhaps a glass of wine

Yuck. Of course it creates more productivity, they're sucking free time out of my evening and injecting into my work day. Screw that. I'm eating a sandwich at my desk in peace and then I'm going home an hour earlier than these shmucks.

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

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

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. :)

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!

> 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...

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...

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.

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.

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...

> 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.

My sister worked at a bank in northern France in the mid nineties, she found it hard that all her coworkers went home for lunch, and her apartment was too far from the office and on her income eating at a bistro couldn't be a daily thing. So the rosy picture of amiable lunches doesn't always apply

These days it's quite affordable. Most restaurants do lunch deals with 3 courses and drink for 10-12€.

This is not France but Spain, similar lunch culture though.

A very à propos clip from a french TV-show about the cultural differences between France and the U.S wrt lunch: https://youtu.be/EAyQfctnWqw?t=93

Not at all surprised to see people here framing a law supporting workers' rights as an infringement on personal liberties. Comparing the work cultures of both countries, it's clear Americans will defend their personal liberties right into servitude.

This is an emotionally-manipulative, inflammatory comment that shouldn't be on HN.

Article that deform the reality to be more clickbaity.

Yes it is forbidden to eat 'at your desk', for obvious sanitary reasons, but I never seen it enforced.

But it is ok to eat in the workplace. More than that, company are supposed to provide a dedicated 'break' space with tap water access.

The root of the sanitary reason is obvious, you just have to see the regulation about restaurant and food serving places in France, even if a lot of people are sadly not respecting it.

What is the obvious reason, for it escapes me?

Here is a link for you to make it more obvious:

https://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/2013/02/eating_lunch_at_...

Btw, the title of this article can't be better in term of clickbaity but it is factual:

Eating lunch at your desk can expose you to more bad bacteria than a toilet seat, study says

Absurd rubbish.

"it is forbidden to eat at your desk" is phrased as clickbait.

Nobody is sending the lunch police to target employees.

This is about requiring employers to provide proper canteens and respecting employees basic needs.

The "clickbait" headline is merely stating the law. Article R4228-19: "Il est interdit de laisser les travailleurs prendre leur repas dans les locaux affectés au travail."[0] Google translates this as "It is forbidden to allow workers to take their meals in the premises assigned to the work."

Enforcement may be lax but the headline is perfectly accurate.

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

We need more of this in America. Perhaps we just need to take the time ourselves and leave no apologies. Too many meetings get scheduled over lunch and people lose their windows of opportunity.

This has somewhat shifted with remote work too and when one decides to take their lunch. I’ve started to do that at the beginning or end of the day because I know I won’t have a chance midday.

No, we really don't need more laws governing our behavior, especially at home.

Culturally, I do agree that people should have the opportunity to get mental breaks- things like non-working lunch ought to be as important as any meeting.

Writing it into law just creates more perverse incentives, though. Punishing people who chose to eat at their desk- even if they aren't working!- is asinine and counterproductive.

I have 12-1 blocked on my calendar every day. I will take the rare meeting in that slot (just like I'd take the rare "sit and eat with a colleague on a scheduled rather than ad-hoc basis" while we were in the office), but most days that's a meeting-free hour where I can go make lunch, walk the dog, listen to some music, or whatever suits me.

Blocking your calendar is low-effort and will likely be high-payoff.

Everyone blocks their calendar off and it still happens. That’s why I commented in the first place. Respecting said hour especially working remotely with teammates in various time zones is the challenge. Add on the workplace culture and it can be even more challenging.

“most days that's a meeting-free hour where I can go make lunch, walk the dog, listen to some music, or whatever suits me.”

You can do all this in an hour? Do you live in the same building as your work? I assume that your working from home.

I am working from home (also note that it’s an “or list”).

> Too many meetings get scheduled over lunch and people lose their windows of opportunity.

Why not just put a daily block on your calendar during your lunch hour? It seems pretty bizarre to require everyone to take their break at the exact same time, instead of when it makes the most sense for them

What I was trying to say is that we should protect individuals lunch hours whenever they are and not let our new world of remote work take over that time.

I like many others block off their calendar to do anything such as get a bite to eat, but the challenge is a FOMO of what you miss out on or the interpersonal challenges you have with people who expect you to be somewhere when you should be on lunch.

People with misophonia will attest that other people eating at their neighborhoods desks is extremely distracting and annoying (and not only because of noises - but smells as well)

So, I'm with France on this

Oh god yes, I had a coworker next to me (on a round table) once who used to create a huge bowl of salad each day and then eat it over the course of an hour or so. It's not only noises and smells, but also the constant view of someone shoveling food into their mouth while you try to focus. He used to do that later in the afternoon, so I couldn't arrange an overlap with me being away from desk for lunch myself. Absolute nightmare. Covid home office was the best thing that ever happened to people like me.

I would only eat at my desk while everyone else is in the breakroom. Eating near people, especially in the cramped quarters that billion-dollar startups deign to give their employees, would just be rude.

Luckily my office is pretty close to downtown, so I make it a point to grab lunch out every day. And of course, it's usually with coworkers.

It adds variety to the day and I feel more connected with everybody.

If I have a string of days with lunchtime calls and I have to eat something at my desk, I'm definitely starting to feel out of sync with the company and this weird feeling of anxiety starts to set in until I'm back in the usual groove.

The late Patrick Henry Winston stopped eating at his desk in an effort to lose weight. As part of his "General Patton Diet", he subsequently lost 60 lbs in 100 days.

Before: http://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/pensees/welcomethen.jpg

After: https://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/pensees/welcomenow.jpg

"I learned to eat and drink veeeeeery slowly at the table meant for eating, not in front of my computer screen. I used to cram in a day's worth of calories in a few minutes, before my body had any idea I was eating anything, which experts say takes 20 minutes."

https://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/index.html

Whatever they say, I’ve known plenty of people eating a sandwich at their desk in France. Some companies like to remind it’s forbidden but usually only to keep the open-spaces clean in case some high profile guy walks around and takes a look, not because they care about people needing a proper lunch break.

In Brazil, companies have to provide a lunchroom and by law, a lunch allowance (it's part of the compensation package). Eating at the desk or eating while walking is frowned upon. The civilized thing to do is to sit down, eat lunch, socialize and not worry about work. I love going to lunch with colleagues in Brazil.

In Germany, lunch hour is part of the compensation scheme. Employees tap their RF cards to check out for lunch and tap to check back in. If they didn't use up their full lunch hour, they can accumulate it and take it as PTO.

In most US companies I've worked in, there's no set lunch hour or duration. It's really left up to the employee as long as they can get their work done. I've had lunches that were 2 hours long, and lunches that were 15 minutes long at Chipotle or at my desk.

> Eating a salad at your desk may not be the most memorable kind of lunch, but at least you can get some work done. In France, that's forbidden.

> The French labor code prohibits workers from eating lunch in the workplace.

Is that a thing? At all my desk jobs I've had collegues (or myself) eating at their desks. It seems like it's indeed a thing https://grh.ooreka.fr/astuce/voir/266456/manger-a-son-poste-..., but I don't think it's applied for desk jobs. It's the first time I've heard of it.

I can confirm it's forbidden. Depending on how sensitive the company (and its lawyers) is, it may be enforced or not.

I've ever only seen people gobble down food while working on my visits in US. Across EU is much rarer.

Gobbling down food is the correct mental image, along with someone in the middle of taking a bite being approached by an apologetic coworker, sighing, putting the food down and plastering a big smile on their face as they ask, "What's up?"

And it should be banned. Why are you not resting your mind away from the work environment and having that meal in a peaceful surrounding?

And that's apart from the likelihood of being pressured to perform unpaid work during that 'rest period'.

For a couple of years, I worked in a room full of cubicles, and a low ceiling, so the noise control was pretty much nonexistent. There were a handful of people whose lunches consisted of bags of cut up carrots and celery. They at their lunches at random times, so I was treated to roughly 1.5 hours per day of intermittent loud munching. Eventually I joined a different work team.

Today, my site has a decent enough cafeteria, and those of us who bring bag lunches just go over there to eat. It's also a good time to talk to the different engineering disciplines outside of their silos.

Personally, I don’t want to smell everybody’s lunches and burnt microwave food while I work for the rest of the day.

As someone who regularly works 10-12 hours a day, shifting the end of the work day a further 1.5hrs sounds like a special kind of hell.

I'll be sticking to my hasty desk-lunch thank you very much.

You don't understand the point.. They don't work those hours.

If you cut your work hours in half, I'd guess your remaining work hours would be more productive on an hourly basis. There are probably all sorts of things making that a challenge to accomplish, but we shouldn't be surprised we see those results in a context that encourages it.

Getting to that is the aspiration, don't get me wrong. At present however I'm in year 3 of bootstrapping a consulting/product startup - so every quarter is still somewhat existential.

The sooner we're reliably profitable, the sooner I can escape the hamster wheel.

Regularly working 10-12 hours a day is more banned than eating at your desk in France, so that's not actually a problem.

AFAIK, the standard is still 35 hours a week in France

Unfortunately anglo-Americans will not get this. They live in a Plato’s cave and are unable to understand what quality of life really means.

I will show this to my boss, while he eats (again) a full water melon at his desk.

But are you still allowed to eat in front of your TV?

Sounds like Elon Musk will never open a Gigafactory in France then.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com