Health Minister Yannnick Neuder is "very much in favor of napping in general, whether in the workplace or at school," he said on Tuesday, presenting an interministerial roadmap "in favor of quality sleep."
"We must ensure that there are these rest periods for children, because they are extremely important, and this also applies to businesses," he told the press.
"There will be no actual recommendation from the Ministry of Health to employers, but we can indeed say that as far as possible," it is desirable "to set up, as many companies already do spontaneously, break areas, quiet spaces that allow employees to take micro-naps."
"It's not about imposing measures that would be unfeasible in some companies, but I believe that in the context of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and well-being at work, many companies have already thought about these issues and are proposing them," he added.
The population's sleep duration has decreased by an average of one and a half hours over the past 50 years, with an average duration for an adult in France being seven hours. One in five French people sleeps less than six hours per night, and it is estimated that 30 and 70% of children and adolescents respectively are sleep deprived.
Sleep degradation promotes the appearance of numerous pathologies, including mental and cardiovascular pathologies.
The roadmap includes strengthening awareness-raising efforts for good sleep in public communications, on the mangerbouger.fr website, or via the Jardin Mental application, developed by the Ministry of Health.
It also plans to increase awareness among childhood and workplace professionals, and to improve the identification of sleep disorders in the population by better training and equipping professionals.
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