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.

At least in Finland the 30 minutes is meant to be 30 minutes sitting down and eating your food. If your place of work has a shared cafeteria people are meant to eat lunch in, getting from your desk to the cafeteria and back, and queueing for your food aren't meant to be part of the lunch break. Only the part you actually spend eating and thus properly on a break.

It's a bit of a spirit of the law thing, though the law is quite exact on the matter. Good luck trying to find an employer outside desk jobs who actually abide by it, though, as factory jobs are scheduled around 20 or 30 minute breaks and if you're not back at your line by then, production halts. Luckily that fact is typically compensated in the pay.

I'd assume other European countries with 30 minute lunch have a similar clause.

All I want to add here is that I fell completeley in love with france over just two weeks working at a customer's site there.

In my decades of work in the UK (from nightshift shelf stacker to software architect) I've never not had one hour.

They're talking like "bring food from home" is not an option. Do French people not have home kitchens and Tupperware?

I mean I can choose. It's good to have a choice. One day I have left overs or salad so I take it to work and leave early. Other days I want to seat and eat proper food, with a fork and a knife, and I can. It's a choice. It seems like you only have 30 minutes but if you eat in 15 you go back even faster. That's not good for your physical or mental health