French Deprived of Holiday Despite Lots of It
The French 'joie de vivre' is being crushed by a lack of holiday leave despite having the world’s most (Reuters)

90% percent of French people have claimed that they are "holiday deprived" despite France topping a recent survey for the number of days of holiday leave given to workers.

A new study entitled "Vacation Deprivation" led by the travel website Expedia was carried out in 24 countries, sampling 8,535 people.

France leads the world in paid leave with 30 days off a year yet 90 percent of the French respondents to the study said they strongly agreed with the sentence "I feel vacation deprived".

Next in line were Italian employees (83 percent), followed by Spanish employees (78 percent) and German employees (74 percent).

While the French want more holidays, they should sympathise with the South Koreans and the Malaysians who are left at the bottom of the holiday leave pile with just 10 and 12 days leave respectively.

In February, the French Education Minister Vincent Peillon initiated a proposal to cut the summer school break from eight weeks down to six.

In response, tourism industry professional Didier Arina said: "The French are really attached both socially and culturally to the long summer holidays. It's a tradition that goes back a long way.

"It's in our blood to go away in the summer. Any minister who attempts to change it comes up against a mini-revolution," he added.

Norweigans were the least aggrieved of the survey participants with only 17 percent saying that they needed more vacations, followed by Mexico (38 percent), Denmark (39 percent) and Sweden (44 percent).

Defying the austerity measures across Europe, French President Francois Hollande has even cut the retirement age from 62 to 60. This is much lower compared to the rest of Europe, with Norway's at 67, Italy's at 66, and Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain's at 65.