“It’s bad”, Mehdi Ghezzar’s rant

The 2024-2025 period is a boon for vacations with all the public holidays falling on weekdays. Enough to allow some employees to take extended leave by cleverly using their vacation days.

What if you took 57 days of vacation during the 2024-2025 school year? By a happy (or unhappy, depending on your point of view) coincidence of the calendar, no public holidays will fall on weekends for the 2024-2025 school year. A calendar subtlety that offers the possibility of several extended weekends. Some lucky employees could thus benefit from 57 days of vacation by taking their 25 days of statutory leave.

All Saints’ Day falls on a Friday and November 11 falls on a Monday. July 14 also falls on a Monday and August 15 falls on a Friday. In May, the 1st, 8th and 29th, all public holidays, fall on a Thursday, which suggests long weekends with only Friday off.

Decrease in turnover and cash flow

News that pleases employees but less so the bosses. Starting with Mehdi Ghezzar, the entrepreneur of Big Mouths: “It’s bad for business, you pay people who don’t work, you lose days, you lose productivity, you’re behind schedule, it’s everything a small business owner shouldn’t have,” he fumes.

“In May, you feel it in terms of a drop in turnover and costs. We have the same expenses but less money coming in and that weighs on the treasuries,” explains Mehdi Ghezzar on RMC and RMC Story. “It also poses problems for parents who work on these public holidays while their children are not in school,” adds the entrepreneur.

A boon for tourism?

In the Ministry of Education, “the only public holiday is Ascension Day,” says teacher Barbara Lefebvre, who assures that classes are not empty during public holidays and that parents cannot remove their children from classes: “Parents who do not send their children are punished. They have unjustified absences and it is the parents’ responsibility.”

However, these bridges are smiling on tourism professionals. In 2022, the French massively took advantage of two bridges in May to go on a long weekend in tourist areas. The same thing this year on the occasion of the long weekend of May 8 and Ascension, exceptional for domestic customers (+30% attendance) according to a study by Harris Interactive.