Should the French calendar become more feminist, anti-racist and queer?

Soon a holiday to celebrate our commitment to gender equality? Éric Piolle, environmental mayor of Grenoble, however says he is in favor of a calendar “more pluralistic”. “We declare public holidays the secular holidays that mark our common attachment to the Republic, the Municipality, the abolition of slavery, women’s rights or LGBT people”he proposed duringan interview granted in late May to FM TVthus relaunching the recurring debate around our holidays.

The Catholic religion, the focus of public holidays in France

Currently our calendar, full of eleven public holidays decreed by the State between 1802 and 1981, favors the Catholic religion, with more than half of these days dedicated to it.

In addition to religious holidays, it is to the deceased and dead for France that the country mainly pays tribute each year (November 11 for the First World War, May 8 for the Second).

Only one public holiday openly consecrates a value promoted by French society and a social claim: the 1^um May, Labor and Workers Day.

A public holiday decreed in some countries for women or people of colour

Is France therefore only a Catholic, patriotic, capitalist country attached to its freedoms? The portrait of French society outlined by its holidays makes you think.

Other countries go, in any case, according to their calendar a “to commemorate and celebrate the great movements that have marked a recent evolution of society”, to use the words of Éric Piolle. This is the case of South Africa (August 9), Azerbaijan (March 8), Russia (also March 8) or even Tunisia (August 13) for women (but not always for gender equality). Same thing in the United States (on 3^And Monday in January) or Puerto Rico (March 22) for racialized people. For the time being, however, no country has yet taken the plunge for LGBT+ communities.

There are many symbolic dates

But if France follows the example of these countries, which dates could be selected? Those who make sense, while speaking to everyone, are not lacking.

For women’s rights, it could be January 17 (for the legalization of abortion thanks to the Veil law of 1975), March 8 (echoing, as in other countries, the international day of women’s rights) or April 21 (referring to the ordinance adopted by De Gaulle in 1944 to grant women the right to vote and make them eligible).

For the rights of LGBT+ people, the date of April 23 (that of the legalization of marriage for all in 2013) could be appropriate, as well as that of June 27 (for the Stonewall riots in the United States in 1969, which led, a year then, at the first Pride in the world), as well as on August 4 (which marks, with a 1982 law, the decriminalization of homosexuality).

The event to be commemorated already seems to be on the side of racialized people’s rights: the abolition of slavery. Indeed, a public holiday is already granted locally in France… but not nationally. “As if the abolition of slavery was something to be celebrated only in overseas departments…”also criticized the mayor of Grenoble on BFMTV.

At stake: ” the conception we have of what constitutes the essence of our nation”

Even recently, such as in 2018 or last March, several bills have been presented with the aim of establishing new public holidays. However, “ France is currently a long way from such a consensus.”judges the historian Jacqueline Lalouette, best known for her work “Feast Days: Holidays and Public Holidays in Contemporary France” (2010). “Since the beginning of the 19th century^And century, public holidays have been accused of harming the economy (loss of income, reduced productivity, etc.). It is for this reason that some holidays have been moved to the Sunday closest to their actual date.she says.

She continues: “We will therefore not be able to create new public holidays without deleting others. And again, this abolition would probably generate considerable ideological and political conflicts, as in 2004, when Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin decided that Whit Monday should lose its character as a public holiday. » According to the historian, if the subject is sensitive, it is because “it is the conception we have of what constitutes the essence of our nation” that is played.

Therefore, it is difficult to know if the game is worth the candle. “Would this lead to more effective memory work and an improvement in the situation of those affected?” Or, conversely, to even more harmful dissensions and fractures within French society? Very clever who will tell », asks Jacqueline Lalouette. For this reason the historian suggests rather to give more value to national days, certainly not festive but already existing dates.

Among these: 8 March, 10 May (National Slavery Remembrance Day, which commemorates, every year, the recognition of slavery as a crime against humanity by Parliament in 2001) and the month of June (with the pride). “The abolition of slavery, women’s rights and LGBT+ rights already have their place on the calendar”, believes Jacqueline Lalouette. The debate does not appear close to being resolved.

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