2023 FRANCE HOLIDAYS

2023 Public Holidays France Service

The above is the list of 2023 public holidays declared in France which includes federal, regional government holidays and popular observances. We also provide France holiday calendar for 2023 in Word, Excel, PDF and printable online formats.

The French republic officially observes 11 public holidays. Five of these are civil holidays (New Year’s Day, May Day, Victory in Europe Day, Bastille Day and WWI Armistice Day) and the others six have a religious origin based on the Catholic faith (Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Assumption Day, All Saints’ Day, and Christmas). The Alsace region and the Moselle department, however, have two additional holidays that they commemorate.

The French law states that work should stop, but be paid, only for the Fête du Travail (May Day, 1st May), unless it is in businesses where it is not feasible to stop work. The other public holidays are listed in statute law; and for these, the law does not provide that action stops. A leave from one’s job may only, however, be granted by an employer or through a trade union. The right to a paid holiday rests on the freedom of choice between the employer and employee either through a contract or bargaining agreement as dictated by trade unions.

In the French Republic, if the holiday occurs on the weekend, no time off is given to the employee. Most establishments, however, let their employees take the preceding Friday off as a “bridge” day, allowing for an extended four-day weekend. Unlike other European countries, if a public holiday falls on a Sunday, French employees are not legally entitled to take the following Monday off as a paid holiday. That translates to the average number of public holidays on French weekdays being 8.7. The number every year ranges from 7 to 10. Majority of Asian countries and all North American countries have between 2 and ten more public holidays every other year on weekdays.