The plan to ban work emails out of hours (original) (raw)

"I do sales. I like doing sales. It means I use email late into the evening, and at the weekend. I don't want my company preventing me from using my mail box just because of some law," she says.

Similar views can be heard expressed at the Bowler pub near the Champs-Elysees, a hang-out for financial and computer workers.

"I think [the right to disconnect] is wonderful for improving the human condition but totally inapplicable," says software writer Gregory.

"In my company we compete with Indian, Chinese, American developers. We need to talk to people around the world late into the night. Our competitors don't have the same restrictions.

"If we obeyed this law we would just be shooting ourselves in the foot."

Olivier Mathiot of PriceMinister says the issue should be addressed by education rather than legislation.

"In France we are champions at passing laws, but they are not always very helpful when what we need is greater flexibility in the workplace," he says.

And according to Linh Le at Elia Consulting, the law will be very quickly made irrelevant. "In a few years' time emails will have ceased to exist," she predicts. "We'll have moved on to something else."

Even cheerleaders such as the MP Benoit Hamon admit that the impact of the law will only go so far - as presently drafted there is no penalty for violating it. Companies are expected to comply voluntarily.

But almost everyone in France agrees that the subject of communications overload is one that needs to be on every employer's agenda.