May 8 Bridge: French Workers and Students Enjoying Spring Break

This week there will be a big May 8 bridge for all students in France from Wednesday to Sunday. Some workers were able to get the same leave and rest during the week of May 1. The French are planning to leave the big cities in the spring when good weather awaits in some areas.

The main bridges in May, this week from Wednesday to Sunday, and next week from May 8 to 12, are important departure times for workers who want to take advantage of these spring bridges by leaving cities. Decryption by the entomologist Jean Viard.

franceinfo: It is a real question for society, Jean Viard, those big bridges in the month of May, and is it a great joy for many of the French?

Jane Viard: Yes, a big surprise is gone. This is the time when the weather starts to get nice, so today, I say that but it’s not nice everywhere. So there is a great desire to leave big cities. There are three holidays in France: from August 1 to 15, the Christmas holidays since 1981 – we added a fifth week of paid holidays between Christmas and New Year’s Day – and then there are the spring bridges that’s there. A year is a good year because there are years when there are not many bridges, as the public holidays fall on a Sunday.

So people have this deep desire. But let’s not forget that gardening is the first activity on this bridge. The 67% of people who have a garden have taken out the mower, the shear, the hook, and are planting flowers or tomatoes. And then there are those who are going to leave the city. It is a celebration of nature, I would call it that. And as many people as possible want to share this celebration of nature. Some may go for a walk in a park, in a public garden or spend a day outside the city. But it is a very strong time in the life of the company.

But some students are just returning from spring break. Does it disturb school life a bit the same?

I think there is a real debate about time management. We should not hide it. We built the school holidays taking into account road safety problems, which are normal, and snow problems, which are also normal. But the world has changed. There are children, they return on Monday morning, after 15 days of vacation and on Tuesday evening, they are on vacation for another five days. Other children will not have a bridge. It is taken during the school holidays. Excuse me, it’s a mess, I think that disorganizes not only the school and the children, but also the representation, because the parents will also ‘ take their days off when their children are at home.

We believe that we will now stop working intensively from the beginning of May. I’m being a bit impulsive in saying this, but I think we need to rethink this. On the one hand, we have to move towards a week where everyone works four days a week – I’m talking about schools – because on Fridays, we know very well that many people leaving the big cities. We can see this very clearly in Paris, but not only in Paris. So the question of school time, related to the time of a four-day working society, arises.

In the United States, there are many schools that are open Monday through Thursday, and on Friday the school is not closed, but for most children it is closed. It is open for catch-ups, for parent meetings, and especially for continuous training for teachers, and this is so that they are not absent on the days when the children are there. It’s a model, you have to think about it.

What the Italians do. Of course, you have the right to take your children on vacation for a week, whenever you want. I think it is completely in tune with the times in our societies, especially for the 9% of French who go skiing. That they go skiing when it snows, and that we don’t force all the French people to stay at home, when only 9% go skiing. At this point, we need to think a lot more about the idea of ​​”families”. To think that families are broken up in space. 50% of people do not live in their birth region, which means that their brothers, sisters and cousins ​​are not nearby.

However, families are one of the main challenges in school holidays: meetings with grandparents, siblings, etc. I think we need to return to the idea that the family is the heart of the social bond, and that school time needs to be structured by the family, and that we may need to review time of the week, including questions about the closeness of work, of representation. Because school time is also part of work time. However, work is an important issue in the ecological battle to produce wealth.

Maybe the May holidays are just the chance to relax with the family?

But that’s why May Bridge is great because everyone has it at the same time. And that’s also why so many people move around, because it’s true in every area so it works very well. But when I was at school, it goes without saying that we have to go back to the old days, Easter for example, it was the same time for everyone. In addition, during the Easter holidays, we had no idea that the Easter holidays did not correspond to the Easter holidays. We have to give meaning to things and I think that these holidays, in fact, this May bridge works very well, because we all have it at the same time.