France has brought in rules to protect employees from work email disturbing them outside office hours. Would a law to this effect be feasible elsewhere? 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.