This Monday, November 11, the debate around the elimination of a public holiday in France was put back on the table by Jean-François Copé. If the mayor of Meaux felt that there was no need for a public holiday to commemorate, Prime Minister Michel Barnier maintained that he was “attached” to it.
Does France have too many public holidays in its calendar? The debate was launched this Monday morning, in the middle of November 11, by the LR mayor of Meaux Jean-François Copé. Guest on France Inter, the elected official affirmed that there was “no need for a public holiday to commemorate”. According to him, “there are a thousand ways to commemorate, without not doing any work.”
The former Budget Minister even joked that if that were the case, there would be “65 million French people at the foot of the war memorials on November 11.”
“A holiday to which we are attached”
But for the Prime Minister, there is no question of eliminating this public holiday. This Monday, Michel Barnier was traveling to Meaux, in Seine-et-Marne, for the inauguration of a reconstructed trench at the Museum of the Great War. During a speech to commemorate the Armistice, the tenant of Matignon did not hide his point of view on the issue.
“Honoring the memory of these fighters is first of all having the memory of this tragic story, which is why I am happy to meet you on this November 11, a public holiday to which we are attached,” he said. -he insisted during his trip.
2.4 billion euros in additional revenue at stake
But the debate on public holidays was not initially launched by Jean-François Copé. The subject has been on the negotiating table for several weeks already. Last October, when the Minister of the Budget, Laurent Saint-Martin, admitted to being open to debate.
“I think that everything that allows our country to show that we can work more to participate in the recovery effort is going in the right direction,” he declared on TF1, without mentioning November 11.
Concretely, according to a senatorial report published at the end of September, the “creation of a second day of solidarity, which would result in the elimination of a public holiday, would make it possible to generate 2.4 billion euros in additional revenue”. Which is not insignificant in this period of budget shortage.
An idea coming from the Senate which seems to suit the Minister of Economy and Finance. “Establishing a second day of solidarity is a very interesting proposal,” Antoine Armand admitted at the end of October on LCI. In total, France has eleven public holidays in its calendar, divided into religious holidays, secular dates or historical references.
