PARIS -- If you are a typical American worker, you have Gonzaque Pichelin's deepest sympathies.

"I can't image what it must be like," Pichelin said recently in his sunny apartment near central Paris. "It makes me a little sad."

He was remarking on the state of the American vacation. Or holiday, as the Europeans say.

Within the 15 European Union countries, employees are assured a minimum four weeks off by law. Additionally, a generous supply of public holidays pushes the actual minimum time off to as many as 43 days. The average is 36 days -- roughly seven weeks.

Most Americans get 10 days, plus -- if they're lucky -- another eight or 10 public holidays. Consequently, American workers put in the longest hours of any industrialized nation, surpassing the next closest country, Japan, by nearly two full workweeks a year.

And many Americans don't even take the time off they're allotted, a new study shows. About a quarter don't use all their vacation time because of workplace demands, research by the U.S.-based Families and Work Institute shows.

Trending Lifestyle Video

Predictably, the institute's study says workers who are not using their full allotment of time off feel significantly more overworked than those who do. In addition, 41 percent of Americans use cell phones and pagers to keep in touch with the office during non-work hours.

Most Europeans view American vacations with horror.

In major cities such as Paris, Rome or London, locals are used to seeing exhausted American tourists wandering the streets, eyes glazed from cramming the experiences of a millennium into a five-day getaway to four European capitals.

Europeans consider three weeks minimal for a civilized vacation: The first week is given over to winding down, the second to actually enjoying the holiday, with the third to easing ever so gently back into reality.

German companies give a minimum of 43 days off, the highest average in Europe.

Britain and Belgium -- which are considered painfully austere by their European counterparts -- provide 31 days minimum in vacation and public holidays.

The Republic of Ireland provides the fewest days off in Europe with 29 days, still more than most Americans get.

A new law in France has given yet another boost to holiday-makers. Now, employees are supposed to work no more than 35 hours a week. However, they can work more and accrue the extra hours as paid time off. For example, if a French employee worked 40 hours a week for a month, he or she would accrue 20 hours off with pay.