Holidays & Festivals

Paris:

Holidays:
Holidays in France are known as jours fériés. Shops and banks are closed, as well as many (but not all) restaurants and museums. Major holidays include January 1 (New Year's Day), Easter, Ascension Day (40 days after Easter), Pentecost (seventh Sun after Easter), May 1 (May Day), May 8 (VE Day), July 14 (Bastille Day), August 15 (Assumption of the Virgin Mary), November 1 (All Saints' Day), November 11 (Armistice Day), and December 25 (Christmas).

Festivals:
Between Christmas, Chopin, cinema and raï music, Chinese New Year and somewhere in Paris something is almost always being celebrated. Cultural festivals in the city are especially good and often give an opportunity to experience an enormous range of Parisian, French and international music or cinema, sometimes for free.

National holidays include New Year’s Day, Easter Monday, Labor Day, Ascension Day, 1945 Victory Day, Whit Monday, Bastille Day (July 14), Assumption Day, All Saints’ Day (November 1), Remembrance Day (November 11), and Christmas Day.

The busiest festivals include the Nice Carnival (February), Grand Prix of Monaco (May), and Festival de Cannes, also known as the Cannes Film Festival (mid-May). Other events to look out for are prêt à porter (February), the Gypsy Festival in Provence (late May), the International Music Festival in Strasbourg (June), the Festival d’Avignon (mid-July) and the Jazz Festival in Nancy (October).