Quelque part, en quelque sorte, quelqu'un...

Might not be having what the government thinks is fun, so it orders everyone to be unreachable;

You're reclining on the beach admiring the surf when your phone goes beep. You've got mail. From your boss.

In many jobs, work email doesn't stop when the employee leaves the office. And now France has decided to act. It has introduced rules to protect about a million people working in the digital and consultancy sectors from work email outside office hours. Those are taken to be before 9am and after 6pm. The deal signed between employers federations and unions says that employees will have to switch off work phones and avoid looking at work email, while firms cannot pressure staff to check messages.

Michel de La Force, chairman of the General Confederation of Managers, has said that "digital working time" would have to be measured. Some emailing outside of office hours would be allowed but only in "exceptional circumstances".

France has a 35-hour week, adopted in 1998. But the French are not alone in worrying about how portable devices have exposed employees to longer hours.

France expects every man to his duty to be a slacker! After all, there's always an American who'll do the heavy lifting for us.