France Public Holidays

France's overseas territories and departments (such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Réunion) also observe additional local holidays tied to their own regional history, including dates commemorating the abolition of slavery locally — observed on different calendar dates in different territories, a genuine layer of variation beyond mainland France's national list.

France's public holidays (jours fériés) are set nationally, with none of the state-by-state variation seen in Germany, though French workers aren't automatically entitled to have every one of them off work — several are only guaranteed as paid days off, with actual time off depending on sector-specific labor agreements.

Bastille Day (July 14) commemorates the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison, a pivotal early event of the French Revolution, and is marked nationally with a major military parade in Paris.

Several French public holidays are specifically Catholic in origin (Assumption Day, All Saints' Day), reflecting the country's historical religious calendar even though France has been officially secular (laïque) since a 1905 law separating church and state.

Armistice Day (November 11) commemorates the end of the First World War fighting in 1918 and remains a full statutory public holiday in France, distinct from how some other countries mark the same date more as a day of remembrance without a universal day off work.

Because several French jours fériés fall on a fixed weekday-adjacent date rather than being pushed to the nearest Monday the way some countries' holidays are, a French holiday landing on a Tuesday or Thursday often produces an informal but widely practiced "faire le pont" (bridging) custom, where the intervening single working day is also taken off — a real cultural practice rather than an official holiday extension.

Victory in Europe Day (May 8) commemorates the 1945 Allied victory over Nazi Germany and is a full statutory holiday in France, a date some other former Allied countries mark with ceremony but without an equivalent nationwide day off work.

France's jours fériés are set by the labor code (Code du travail) rather than requiring separate legislation for each one, meaning the legal mechanism behind the list is more centralized than in federally structured countries like Germany or Switzerland, even though France still layers regional variation on top in its overseas territories.

Only Labour Day (May 1) is a fully guaranteed paid day off for essentially all French workers by law regardless of sector; several of the other jours fériés are technically only guaranteed as non-working days without automatic pay unless a specific collective bargaining agreement provides for it, a subtlety often lost in casual descriptions of the French holiday calendar.

France's overseas departments observing their own emancipation-commemoration dates on different calendar days (rather than a single shared date across all of them) reflects the genuinely separate historical timeline of abolition reaching each territory, rather than one uniform empire-wide date applying everywhere at once.

France's jours fériés list is set nationally by the labor code, but mainland France doesn't add the kind of regional or municipal holiday layer seen in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, or Italy — its real geographic variation is concentrated specifically in the overseas departments and territories rather than across mainland regions.

Easter Monday, Ascension Day, and Whit Monday are movable and computed separately.

Source: French Ministry of Labour public holiday list, as of 2026-07-12.