The fact that you guys only have 30 minutes to eat is insane! We have 1:30 hours by law and It’s barely enough time to go down, get something and eat. Even if you eat fast food (which we don’t like) you won’t be able to go there, buy, eat and be back in 30. You need a revolution!
Yeah well we can’t all be French. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but 30 minutes is standard even in Europe.

30 is common, but I wouldn’t say standard. An hour a day feels standard.

In office work, you usually get it all in one chunk, whereas if you work physically demanding or shift-based work, you get 15 minutes coffee break, then at lunch 30 minutes, then another 15 minutes later. This is true at least for all the western European countries.

What I noticed is that often it’s “30 minutes lunch with 7:30 of work time, for a total of 8 hours at work”, or “1 hour lunch with 8 hours of work time, for a total of 9 hours at work”.

In Germany it’s dependent on the work hours and type of physical activity, for me it’s: <6 hours, no break (for adults) 6-8 hours, 30 minutes break 8-10 hours, 45 minutes break

10 hours, 1 hour

if you have a job where you have to concentrate a lot (assembly lines, bus/truck drivers, air traffic controllers) these times change a lot, sometimes down to like 1 hour maximum continuous work and then 15-30 minutes of break time.

In Germany it’s 45 minutes break if you work more than 9 hours.