A new deal signed between two French business groups (Syntec and Cinov) and two unions says that employees are not to check—or feel pressured to check—their work e-mail after hours, to the extent that they don't get 11 consecutive hours of "rest" each day. The BBC reports that the new pact covers roughly "a million people," and according to Les Echos, the agreement covers only "cadres," or managers, not underlings.

France is famously protective of its leisure time, with a legally mandated 35-hour work week and a statutory minimum of five weeks of vacation each year. As in other countries, work hours have begun to leak out of what was normally constrained to the office thanks to technology.

The new agreement mandates that managers can't engage with their e-mail, which means it's only a partial reprieve for their subordinates—if managers can't check their e-mail, they can't very well carry on conversations with their employees, either. The BBC quotes Michel de La Force, chairman of the General Confederation of Managers, as saying that "digital working time" needs to be measured.

France is not the first country with labor representatives to get involved in e-mail mandates. In 2011, labor reps negotiated with Volkswagen to get the company to disable e-mail for its employees when they are off duty. According to de La Force, e-mailing outside the 9am to 6pm window would still be allowed, but only in "exceptional circumstances."