No long weekend to start 2025 unlike last year with January 1st falling on a Wednesday this year. Note that the administrations are closed on January 2 as well and some have taken the initiative to take their Friday off and make a bridge. You then have to wait until March 5, which again falls on a Wednesday, to stay in bed and celebrate the arrival of the Gospel. A non-working day for all Polynesians of all religious faiths, March 5, 1797 initially marked the arrival of the first missionaries in Tahiti in the bay of Matavai for the Protestants. A Polynesian specificity just like Good Friday (April 18) which precedes Easter Monday and which is not a public holiday in mainland France.
Another local specificity is June 29, which is the 3rd public holiday in the Polynesian calendar. At least until now. This date has always been controversial from a political point of view. A celebration of autonomy for some, it is likened to a “day of mourning” for the separatists who recall that it was on June 29, 1880 that Pomare V donated his territories to France. Regardless, June 29 falls on a Sunday this year but its removal is imminent.
Let us recall that before she was removed from the government, former vice-president Eliane Tevahitua had proposed replacing this famous June 29 with November 20 to celebrate Matari'i i ni'a (the appearance of the Pleiades ). And last May, the Council of Ministers validated the date of November 20 as a public holiday.
Except that it doesn't work like that and that you necessarily have to go through a vote in the assembly to modify public holidays in the labor code. The government has therefore prepared a text to this effect, but with a small change: dedicating a public holiday “the last Friday of November”. A flexible date which is not unanimous, particularly among unions who do not want to renegotiate the collective agreements in which these public holidays are already planned. The country's bill is still in the legislative circuit and can still be amended, but as it is written, the government wants it to be applicable this year. To be continued.
Finally, as in mainland France, Polynesians will have three public holidays in the month of May: the 1st obviously which corresponds to Labor Day, May 8 which commemorates the victory of the Second War in 1945, and Ascension Thursday which falls on May 29 this year. And then three long weekends in perspective with Pentecost Monday on June 9, the national holiday of July 14 also on a Monday, and the Assumption on Friday August 15. All Saints' Day will fall on a Saturday this year, the armistice of November 11 on a Tuesday and December 25 on a Thursday.
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