Two million vacation days

Exemplifying a problem created by France’s generous vacation and overtime rules the employees of the Hopital Vaugirard in Paris have accumulated 2 million days off, reports NPR’s Renée Montagne on Morning Edition. French workers get comped vacation time added to their base five weeks of annual leave if they work longer than the mandated 35-hour work week and apparently even the French can’t take all of that time off in a year. Nevertheless, “By law, they must take those days off by the end of this year, but that could mean closing hospitals for months.”