[koyote]

Maybe you should move to France where something very similar to the above is pretty much encoded in law (with caveats of course).

I have not worked in France but as far as I understand, if you work more than 35 hours a week you will get the extra hours as additional time towards your annual leave:

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F34151

[gield]

Most countries in Europe have similar schemes. In Belgium, a work week is 38 hours. If your contract states that you work 40 hour weeks, you get 12 extra days off every year.

[jobigoud]

In practice the extra time worked above the 35 hours goes into a different counter that you typically take one or two days at a time rather than batch it along the rest. Also it's fairly rare for people to take their 5 vacation weeks in one setting, the employer still has a say and you still have to coordinate with colleagues.

[koyote]

That is a good point, although I used to work for a US multinational with people based in France and they often took 3-4 weeks in one go. More than that might be pushing it a bit.