French Holidays
Planning a trip to Paris? Here’s what you need to know about official public holidays in France.
In addition to Easter, Pentecost, and Ascension Day, which don’t fall on specific dates, the following are official holidays in France:
- January 1: New Year’s Day
- May 1: Labor Day
- May 8: Victory in Europe Day (end of WWII in 1945)
- July 14: Bastille Day (Quatorze Juillet)
- August 15: Assumption Day
- November 1: All Saint’s Day
- November 11: Armistice Day (end of WWI in 1918)
- December 25: Christmas Day
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Starting in early January, cakes known as galettes des rois—each with a little charm baked inside—begin to appear in French bakeries. Every French family buys these cakes. According to tradition, once the cake is cut, the youngest person at the table gets to decide who gets which piece. Whoever finds the charm then buys the next cake.
On June 21, the evening of the summer solstice, Paris celebrates the Fête de la Musique. It is a day of musical revelry when people everywhere—in the streets, cafés, bars, concert halls, or at home—listen to and make music and dance in the streets.
From the evening of July 13 until early in the morning of Quatorze Juillet you can dance in fire stations at the Bal des Pompiers—Firemen’s Ball. Various festivities are organized throughout the city on July 14 for Bastille Day.
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A top historian offers a new history of Paris’s Belle Époque, the luminous age of the Eiffel Tower and the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, but also of social unrest and violent clashes over what it meant to be French.
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