From rail strikes to festivals and a plan for spending cuts, here’s what to expect if you are in France this summer.
Rail strikes – the Sud-Rail union has filed a three-month strike notice, running from June 12th to September 8th. This doesn’t mean three solid months of disruption, but it means that the union can call one-day or multi-day strikes at any time during this period, although they say they intend to give at least five days notice of planned actions. Find the latest updates here.
Airline strikes – The busy summer holiday period is normally peak strike season for workers in the airline industry, whether that is airport staff, workers at individual airlines or air traffic controllers. At the time of writing no industrial action has been announced, but you can keep up with the latest in our strike section.
Paris transport closures – every year the Paris public transport operators have a schedule of repairs and maintenance for the summer which involves line closures and disruption. The logic behind this is that public transport is a lot quieter in the summer as so many Parisians are away – this year there is a particularly extensive schedule of closures on the Metro, tram and RER lines – full details here.
Elections? – last summer president Emmanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections to try and break the deadlock in the Assemblée nationale. This did not work as planned, and in fact the deadlock is now worse. The Constitution states that the president must wait a year before calling fresh elections – Macron could, therefore, call elections from July, although it would be very unlikely that they would be held over the summer.
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One thing we do know is that Macron will be giving the traditional presidential TV address to the nation on July 14th, in which he may or may not announce an election or policy changes.
Debt plan – France is currently sitting under the ‘sword of Damocles’, according to prime minister François Bayrou, because of the country’s spiralling deficit. Bayrou has issued several warnings about the deficit and its impact on the country, and has said that he will present a detailed plan of spending cuts “at the beginning of July”.
School holidays – French schoolkids get a decent chunk of holiday in the summer. The school year ends on Friday, July 4th (or July 5th for those schools that have Saturday morning classes), and restarts on Monday, September 1st.
Public holidays – French adults get some holiday too, there are two public holidays over the summer period; the Fête nationale (aka Bastille Day) on Monday, July 14th and the Christian festival of Assumption on Friday, August 15th.
Red letter days on the roads – with all that holiday travel, things get busy on the roads and the railways. Keep an eye on the French traffic forecaster Bison futé for the detailed traffic predictions but key travel weekends are the weekend of July 4th/5th, as the schools break up, the two above mentioned public holiday weekends and the final weekend of July, first of August – known as the chasé-croisé or crossover weekend as the July holidaymakers return and the August ones set out.
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Property tax declaration – one for property-owners in France, if you’ve moved house in France or otherwise changed your status in the past year you may have complete the property tax declaration known as the déclaration d’occupation or déclaration des biens immobilers. It must be submitted by June 30th.
Summer sales – the second of France’s state-controlled sales periods is in the summer. This year the sales run from Wednesday, June 25th, until Tuesday, July 22nd.
Festivals – summer is peak festival season in France with dozens of festivals all over the country each week – here’s out pick of 29 of the best.
Tour de France – this year won’t have the excitement of the Paris Olympics, but when it comes to high-level sport there is still the Tour de France. This year, the famous cycle race returns to its traditional finish point on the Champs-Elyées, with an added loop through the historic Paris district on Montmartre.
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