Live data from Hacker News

Eating at your desk is banned in France

npr.org

81–85 of 85 posts

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#83
post #5

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 Fra…

"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...

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#84

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…

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 t…

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.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.
Post reply on HN