Quiet, the French Are Sleeping

Conservatives should have some fun with this for a day or two: According to a study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, France is the industrialized country where people spend the longest periods sleeping—almost nine hours a day. Compared to the French’s 530 minutes of daily sleep, Americans averaged 518, while Koreans were the most awake with 469. The French also spend over two hours each day eating, which is about double the time Americans spend on their meals. And if that weren't enough, they hold a third record: 30 annual days of mandatory paid leave, compared with twenty in the U.K., ten in Japan, and zero in the U.S. The study also found that Italy is the country where leisure is the least fairly divided among the sexes. Italian men have nearly 80 daily minutes more leisure time than women.