by a scientist who is a Paris native and who requests anonymity
Seasoned visitors to the City of Light always factor in their travel plans the two most prevalent facts of life in France: vacations and strikes. Fortunately, school vacation periods are scheduled in advance with clockwork regularity. Strikes may be nearly as predictable. This preliminary study suggests a strong correlation between occurrences of the two.
(Image credit: Flickr user Trey Ratcliff)
The right to protest and demonstrate in France is a fundamental part of life, and not limited to the employed. In fact, foreign visitors in Paris in December 1997 might have witnessed a somewhat surreal event: hundreds of unemployed people on strike, demonstrating in the streets, demanding an end-of-the-year bonus.
But if there is one thing the strikers will not sacrifice, it is their hard earned (and constitutional right to) vacations. Witness the school teachers who went on strike in May of 2003, suspended the strike at the end of June for their summer break, and came back at the beginning of the next school year, in September, to resume the strike. Indeed, major issues had remained unresolved.
Needless to say, strikes are very unlikely in July and August (summer break), as at least three quarters of the workforce are away on vacation, and so is most of the government. At this time of the year, Paris is populated with tourists and the grumpy quarter of Parisians who got stuck at work while the others are chilling out on the Riviera or camping in Normandy. (This might be an explanation for the poor image of Parisians tourists tend to have, but that is a topic for another study).
In September vacationers come back in town, broke, to find out that the cost of living (public transportations, food, gas, etc.) has gone up while they were gone. Vacationers have to go back to work, days are getting shorter and the weather is worsening. Expect strikes from mid-September to beginning of October. Not too late in October, though, because that would interfere with the first school break (All Saints break, from end of October to beginning of November).
The next high occurrence period is mid-December, when the days are getting really short, the weather is downright miserable and people feel broke and start worrying about the holidays. Some privileged categories of indispensable workers regularly threaten to go on strike during the holidays, but generally the issues get resolved in time for everyone to enjoy the end-of-year festivities.
In January and February, the outdoors activity on everybody’s mind is winter sports. Two school vacations, the winter break (late February to mid-March), and the spring break (mid-April to early May), help Parisians survive until the return of warm weather. Everyone is relaxed from the last break, and the anticipation of the next. There is hardly any time left in between to get back to work, let alone sneak in a little strike or protest.
(Image credit: Flickr user malias)
May–June is quite a complex period, due to the number and distribution of holidays in May. May 1st is Labor Day and May 8th is the WWII armistice. In a good year both occur on Monday or Friday, providing two long weekends. On an excellent year, they occur on Tuesday or Thursday, and with the “ponts” (“free” non-working days granted to bridge one-day gaps between holidays and week-ends) that’s two four-day weekends. Ascension Day comes 39 days after Easter, and that is a Thursday in May. In an excellent year, that Thursday does not coincide with the other holidays, and that’s another light week (or very long weekend). In fact, in a really good year, an employee can get the whole month of May off by taking about 10 official vacation days. Of course, even in France, not everyone can do that at the same time, so about half the people are away, and the other half are stuck at work, a day or two per week, and not doing much anyways.
When June comes, the weather becomes really pleasant, the Roland-Garros Tennis tournament (French Open, end of May to beginning of June) signals that the end of the school year is close, the summer vacations are around the corner and everybody is eager to get outdoors. After the end of the French Open, expect major protests with demonstrations en masse. This is the favorite time of the year for students to take to the streets (as end-of-the year exams approach). The strikes and demonstrations will most likely stop on time for Parisians to travel to their favorite summer spot come July.
Note that on a bad year, the May holidays coincide with weekends. The French feel cheated: expect the pre-summer protests to start earlier (although demonstrations are unlikely during Roland-Garros).
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
Seasoned visitors to the City of Light always factor in their travel plans the two most prevalent facts of life in France: vacations and strikes. Fortunately, school vacation periods are scheduled in advance with clockwork regularity. Strikes may be nearly as predictable. This preliminary study suggests a strong correlation between occurrences of the two.
(Image credit: Flickr user Trey Ratcliff)
The right to protest and demonstrate in France is a fundamental part of life, and not limited to the employed. In fact, foreign visitors in Paris in December 1997 might have witnessed a somewhat surreal event: hundreds of unemployed people on strike, demonstrating in the streets, demanding an end-of-the-year bonus.
But if there is one thing the strikers will not sacrifice, it is their hard earned (and constitutional right to) vacations. Witness the school teachers who went on strike in May of 2003, suspended the strike at the end of June for their summer break, and came back at the beginning of the next school year, in September, to resume the strike. Indeed, major issues had remained unresolved.
Needless to say, strikes are very unlikely in July and August (summer break), as at least three quarters of the workforce are away on vacation, and so is most of the government. At this time of the year, Paris is populated with tourists and the grumpy quarter of Parisians who got stuck at work while the others are chilling out on the Riviera or camping in Normandy. (This might be an explanation for the poor image of Parisians tourists tend to have, but that is a topic for another study).
In September vacationers come back in town, broke, to find out that the cost of living (public transportations, food, gas, etc.) has gone up while they were gone. Vacationers have to go back to work, days are getting shorter and the weather is worsening. Expect strikes from mid-September to beginning of October. Not too late in October, though, because that would interfere with the first school break (All Saints break, from end of October to beginning of November).
The next high occurrence period is mid-December, when the days are getting really short, the weather is downright miserable and people feel broke and start worrying about the holidays. Some privileged categories of indispensable workers regularly threaten to go on strike during the holidays, but generally the issues get resolved in time for everyone to enjoy the end-of-year festivities.
In January and February, the outdoors activity on everybody’s mind is winter sports. Two school vacations, the winter break (late February to mid-March), and the spring break (mid-April to early May), help Parisians survive until the return of warm weather. Everyone is relaxed from the last break, and the anticipation of the next. There is hardly any time left in between to get back to work, let alone sneak in a little strike or protest.
(Image credit: Flickr user malias)
May–June is quite a complex period, due to the number and distribution of holidays in May. May 1st is Labor Day and May 8th is the WWII armistice. In a good year both occur on Monday or Friday, providing two long weekends. On an excellent year, they occur on Tuesday or Thursday, and with the “ponts” (“free” non-working days granted to bridge one-day gaps between holidays and week-ends) that’s two four-day weekends. Ascension Day comes 39 days after Easter, and that is a Thursday in May. In an excellent year, that Thursday does not coincide with the other holidays, and that’s another light week (or very long weekend). In fact, in a really good year, an employee can get the whole month of May off by taking about 10 official vacation days. Of course, even in France, not everyone can do that at the same time, so about half the people are away, and the other half are stuck at work, a day or two per week, and not doing much anyways.
When June comes, the weather becomes really pleasant, the Roland-Garros Tennis tournament (French Open, end of May to beginning of June) signals that the end of the school year is close, the summer vacations are around the corner and everybody is eager to get outdoors. After the end of the French Open, expect major protests with demonstrations en masse. This is the favorite time of the year for students to take to the streets (as end-of-the year exams approach). The strikes and demonstrations will most likely stop on time for Parisians to travel to their favorite summer spot come July.
Note that on a bad year, the May holidays coincide with weekends. The French feel cheated: expect the pre-summer protests to start earlier (although demonstrations are unlikely during Roland-Garros).
(Image credit: Flickr user Les Hutchins)
So this is why April is clearly the best time to visit Paris: the weather might not be great yet, but the chance of major social disturbances is low, and the Parisians, either coming back from a vacation or about to go on a vacation, are likely in the best mood they’ll be in all year._____________________
This article is republished with permission from the May-June 2008 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
There are some interesting points and some problems in that paper. It is right for example that strikes tend not to happen during school vacations : for instance, the last massive wave of protests and strikes came to an end two weeks ago, mainly due to the All Saints holiday (and also because of the change in the minds of union leaders in the CFDT, the moderate union).
However, this paper presents a really idealized image of the French way of life. The number of Frenchmen going on vacations is decreasing due to the economic conditions : now it's more than 50% of them that didn't went on vacations last Summer ( http://www.france24.com/fr/20090521-tourisme-francais-vacances-crise-financiere-social-pouvoir-achat?pop=TRUE ). And you can think the number of people going on winter vacations is even lower.
Also, students generally don't go on strike on June : the final exams start in May, and I don't know any big student strike that lasted after April - the last big one, in 2006, came to an end at the beginning of April, when the government ditched its plan.
People have less and less time to allocate to this kind of demonstration, that only a few portion of the workforce can undertake : people working for private companies may support strike waves, as polls show, but it is very hard for them to enter the movement, especially since new laws of the Sarkozy era made it harder to strike and easier for the company to fire their employees. (there is a lot of part-time workers and contracts with defined deadline, and renewal of the contract is never ensured)
However, it is right that people tend to go easily on strike in November / December, as they maybe feel more grumpy because of the weather, and during the winter.
(oh, and that second picture with that "stop la grève" motto is actually against strikes ; it comes from small student groups satellized by the incumbent UMP party)
But I must condemn the author : that's not a secret you reveal to the world! April is a month with a rare combination of nice weather and low tourism! Don't you ruin this for us!
god! and why do parisians hate non-french speaking tourists that much ? (i'm not native english speaker)
In fact, in the rest of France, Parisians have the reputation to be cranky and selfish. Moreover, the common Parisian hate to deal with tourists in general (even other French people from the "province"): to much under pressure, has to catch a metro, a train, not to miss a meeting, whatever. I guess it's the deal with every really big cities (I had some bad experiences with New Yorker, too).
Thanks,
Whenever people do strike it is always for very good reasons, and only go on as long as the managers do not agree with the conditions the strikers have proposed.