Corona Daily 188: No More Bon Appetit

France knows best how life should be lived- with food, love and leisure.

Cuisine is a French word. Try to find an exact equivalent in your language, you will struggle. In Paris, I saw for the first time, rows and rows of people at restaurant tables facing the streets.  Eating out is a spectacularly social and boisterous event in the evenings. In places like Paris, every day is a food festival. French culture is the culture of the table.

And un baiser amoureux, the French kiss, is the only kiss I know that is named after a nation. The French know how to love, with abandon, without inhibition, without worrying about hygiene or diseases.

And work-life balance is far tilted towards life. This is one capitalist country with strict labour laws. France gave the world a 35-hour working week. I have first-hand experience of teams of French office employees disappearing for lunch, and not at all concerned about returning to the office in time, or returning at all. If it is best to be an employer in America, it is best to be an employee in France. The leisure and well being of an employee is governed by labour laws.

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Code du Travail (French labour code) is a 3,324-page document. Its length should tell you how serious the French are about protecting workers.

Article R4228-19 in that code has the following beautiful wording:  It is forbidden to let workers eat their meals in the premises assigned to work.

French are not allowed to eat where they work, no grabbing a sandwich next to your keyboard. That is considered a repulsive American habit in France. Each company must have a canteen or a separate eating place for the employees. Anybody eating at their desks can be fined and disciplinary action taken against them. The French have understood that we work in order to eat, and not the other way round. So, eating away from work is the revered practice. That is why it is legitimate to disappear from office for long hours during lunch. People must detach themselves from work and enjoy meals. Food and excel spreadsheets can never be mixed.

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The news coming from the French labour ministry last week is catastrophic. The pandemic has already affected France in several ways. Teletravail (work from home) is encouraged. But in January, only 64% of those who could work from home did so. A 6 pm curfew prevents the pre-dinner stop at the boulangerie. Closure of cafes and restaurants has prompted “le click and collect”. From 29 January, a distance of two meters is mandatory between people at work when masks can’t be worn, including in canteens and lunch halls.

And now the labour ministry has announced it will allow eating at the work desk. The twentieth century regulation that prevented the ruthless capitalists from exploiting workers during their lunch hours has fallen apart for the first time. The French are devastated by the news.

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For the sake of the French, and for the global labour movement, one hopes the measure is temporary, and once the pandemic is over, Parisians will continue to disappear for those interminable hours called their lunch break.

Ravi