According to the 17th century French novelist, Francoise de Motteville \u201cThe true way to make ourselves happy is to love our work\u201d. His compatriots today, though, don\u2019t seem to share that view. Despite President Sarkozy\u2019s attempts to make them think more \u2018Anglo-Saxon\u2019, over 50% of the French want to keep the current 35-hour week, remain attached to their long lunch-breaks and have no intention of giving up any of their 11 public holidays. Those who want to work harder tend to come to the UK where (they hope) they can earn much higher salaries. Which is why the French community in Britain is now estimated at around 300,000.<\/p>\n
The average working week in the UK is 43.6 hours compared to 40.3 in the rest of Europe. Over 26% of employees in Britain put in more than 48 hours per week and one-sixth more than 60 hours per week. This also applies to the bosses: A recent survey concluded that four out of five worked over 60 hours per week and many got only 4 hours sleep a night. In parts of Spain and Italy, offices and shops close at 12 noon and don\u2019t re-open until 4pm. Not in the UK. Here 65% of employees take just 27 of their 60-minute lunch break entitlement \u2013 often remaining at their computers with a sandwich. Although absenteeism can be a problem for some companies, only 44% of employees in Britain use up all their annual leave. They don\u2019t want to get behind with their workload, upset the boss and risk their chances of promotion.\u00a0 Statutory holiday leave was increased by the European Union from 20 to 24 days per year (for people working five days a week) on 1st October 2007. It will go up again to 28 days on 1st April 2009. Bank Holidays are included, so the employer can decide whether to pay extra for these or not.<\/p>\n
Other EU members have complained that Britain\u2019s \u2018opt-out\u2019 from the maximum 48-hour working week regulation gives it an unfair economic advantage. Most of them, however, have more public holidays than us. England & Wales get 8 (the same as in\u00a0 Holland), Scotland 9 (one for St. Andrew\u2019s Day) and Northern Ireland 10 (to mark both the Catholic St Patrick\u2019s Day and the Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690). In continental Europe, it varies according to country and area: Italy (12), Spain (12-14), Germany (9-12), Luxembourg (10). In many of these, if the holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, they\u2019ll often take the \u2018bridge day\u2019 off as well. The British Trade\u00a0 Union movement has campaigned for three additional bank holidays. A \u2018Diana Day\u2019 on the Monday closest to July 1st (the Princess\u2019s birthday) has been proposed. Also ,a \u2018Beatles Day\u2019 on February 9th (the date the group first performed at the Cavern Club in Liverpool). Both of these are unlikely. More possible is April 23rd ( St. George\u2019s Day and Shakespeare\u2019s birthday),except that this would be a bit close to the two in May. The favourite at the moment is July 5th, the anniversary of the birth of the National Health Service (NHS).<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s options are somewhat limited. As a former imperial power, it doesn\u2019t have an \u2018independence day\u2019 to celebrate or even an equivalent to the fall of the Bastille. Also, for the Church of England, the saints don\u2019t have the same status as (for example) in Italy or Latin America. Traditionally, it rains on British Bank holidays. If by chance the weather is reasonable, the roads to the countryside and coast are packed solid. Flights abroad cost more. The solution is probably to go to work as usual (especially if you\u2019re being paid overtime) and go away when everyone else is staying at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to the 17th century French novelist, Francoise de Motteville \u201cThe true way to make ourselves happy is to love our work\u201d. His compatriots today, though, don\u2019t seem to share that view. Despite President Sarkozy\u2019s attempts to make them think more \u2018Anglo-Saxon\u2019, over 50% of the French want to keep the current 35-hour week, remain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}