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Juilletistes vs Aoûtiens: Do France’s two summer holiday tribes still exist?

For years France has had two tribes of holidaymakers - juilletistes and aoûtiens. But do these two traditional tribes still exist?

Juilletistes vs Aoûtiens: Do France's two summer holiday tribes still exist?
When do you prefer your beach time? Photo: Valery Hache/AFP

Summer holidays are a big deal in France, with cities emptying out in July and August as people head to the coast or the countryside and it’s common for people to take a month off work – but which month?

One of the most iconic forms of rivalry between French holidaymakers is the opposition between the juilletistes and the aoûtiens – those who go on holiday in July versus those who prefer August.

The final weekend of July is usually one of the busiest weekends of the year on the roads as juilletistes return and aoûtiens set out. It even has a special name – chassé-croisé.

This year the school year ends on Friday, July 7th (apart from the unlucky pupils whose schools have Saturday classes, which end on July 8th) and Friday evening is predicted to be a busy one on the roads.

The chassé-croisé will be the weekend of July 29th and 30th and schools restart on Monday, September 4th.

The terms date back to the summer of 1969 when a fourth week of paid leave was voted into French law. It was a milestone piece of legislation that laid the basis for one of France’s most important annual traditions, les grandes vacances (the “big” summer holidays).

Suddenly eight out of 10 French people were able to take a summer holiday. Some chose July, others preferred August – made possible by the fact schools in France close for pretty much the whole of July and August.

But traditionally, the month you took your holidays reflected more than a simple preference. 

‘Well-to-do’ vs. ‘working class’

Back in the 1960s the August holidaymakers were largely working class as this was the month factories closed across France. July on the other hand was reserved for executives and professionals. The idea of the ‘well-to-do’ July clan was contrasted with the ‘working class’ August clan.

The clichés grew into deep cultural stereotypes. The juilletistes were seen as lazy people who escaped to an exotic place while everyone else was still working hard, only to return to work in August when things are still calm. (Of course a juilletiste would say someone needed to keep the country running while the workers went away on holiday

READ ALSO: How much holiday time do the French really get every year?

Does the divide still exist today?

Times have changed and people no longer have the same habits. Over the years, as the service sector expanded and changed, the divide between the two different groups slowly faded away as people began to pick their holiday month based much more on personal preferences and workplace demands.

It’s now safe to say that this rivalry is no longer accurate, although it remains firmly installed in the French psyche.

August still remains the emblematic summer month – even more so than July – with cities virtually emptying and everything seemingly closing down. It’s common for local shops, cafés and pharmacies to be closed for the month, with signs simply reading ‘back in September’ and you should probably forget about getting any administrative task done during August.

READ ALSO The 8 signs that August has arrived in France

But for several years now, there has been a new tribe, the septembristes, who wait for September before packing up their things – probably to avoid the juilletistes and the aoûtiens.

As schools return in September, the septembriste is not a category easily accessible to everyone, but mostly made up by the young, the child-free and the elderly.

By Olivia Sorrel-Dejerine

Member comments

  1. As I am retired and very fortunate to have friends in Paris, I get to visit sometimes twice a year from America. I love visiting and staying for maybe 4 weeks each time. My favorite months to visit are June when the roses in the Parc de Bagatelle are blooming, and it is absolutely worth the visit. And the other month is September so I can enjoy the European Heritage Days or what some call Patrimony weekend. If I could afford to move to Paris I would in a heartbeat.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Are France’s loss-making regional airports under threat?

Just a quarter of France's airports break even financially with the rest - the smaller, regional airports - heavily subsidised by the state. But can this situation continue?

Are France's loss-making regional airports under threat?

France last year welcomed 199 million airline passengers – bringing the country numbers back to almost pre-pandemic levels. 

But it was only a handful of French airports that took in the vast majority of those millions – with Paris’ Roissy-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Orly airports responsible for more than half of the air traffic.

France’s Cour de Comptes counted 73 mainland commercial airports in their 2023 review of the airline sector – but only 15 of those actually break even, the rest rely on subsidies.

Some of these airports are exceedingly small, like Troyes which had just 1,562 passengers in 2023. Others, like Rodez with 31,577 passengers and Castres with 36,454 got a bit more.

Map of airports in France, including both passenger and non-passenger airports (Credit: l’UNION DES AÉROPORTS FRANÇAIS & FRANCOPHONES ASSOCIÉS – UAF & FA)

Limoges was larger, with 264,426 passengers in 2023, but it still paled in comparison to the 10.8 million that passed through the Marseille airport.

The cost of small-to-medium sized airports

The former head of the Air Transport Institute, Jacques Pavaux, authored a 2019 study on public aid to airports, finding that those with less than one million passengers per year are not profitable, noting that only 15 of France’s airports get enough traffic to be profitable.

As for the others, most have been loss-making for years, unable to continue services without significant aid from the state.

“Their chronic deficit has been filled by recurring operating subsidies granted over decades of existence. Almost half of them have never had, and will never have, any chance of reaching the traffic threshold guaranteeing financial balance,” Pavaux wrote. 

The study found that state and local authorities spend around €90 million every year to help keep the small-to-medium sized airports afloat. 

Of the 73 airports listed in the Cour de Comptes report, a little over half (38) counted fewer than 700,000 passengers a year. 

The Cour de Comptes called these “the most economically fragile”, noting that they depend on aid from local authorities to balance operations and carry out the necessary investments.

On top of that, many do not have negotiation options and find themselves competing with neighbouring airports, leaving them forced to take on contracts with low-cost airlines. 

As of 2021, low-cost air traffic represented more than 90 percent of commercial traffic for airports in Dôle, Vatry, Limoges, Bergerac, Nîmes, while it constituted all of the traffic at the Carcassonne, Tours and Béziers airports.

Over-density of airports

Some areas stand out for having a particularly high volume of commercial passenger airports, like Occitanie along the Mediterranean coast in southern France, which is home to nine.

The Cour de Comptes report found that in Occitanie 71.5 percent of regional airport traffic occurred at the Toulouse airport, followed by Montpellier with 14.4 percent.

The other seven – Carcassone, Tarbes, Perpignan, Nîmes, Béziers, Rodez and Castres – combined provided the remaining 14 percent of traffic. 

Valérie Renet, the head of the Occitanie Regional Chamber of Accounts, told France 3 that it is this ‘over-density’ that leads to financial losses, as “operating deficits are covered by public subsidies, that is to say that taxpayers’ money is used to balance the operation of these airports, usually for the benefit of low-cost companies.”

Last year, the airport of Bézers, which is “totally dependent on Ryanair”, received €5.1 million in public money to reach equilibrium, which equates to about €20.69 paid out per passenger, France Bleu reported. 

As for Ryanair, the company benefits from over €30 million in public subsidies – or €16 per passenger – from regional airports in Occitanie alone.

The picture is similar in Brittany, which is home to eight airports, though over 80 percent of traffic is concentrated in Brest, which has a little over one million passengers a year (as of 2018).

The future for small-to-medium sized airports

Building new airports has already become controversial – a proposal for a new airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes near the city of Nantes was the subject of huge protests for years until in 2018 the project was officially abandoned.

But that doesn’t mean that the loss-making existing airports are under threat. 

In terms of what to do with the loss-making airports, Renet focused on the situation in Occitanie. She told France 3 that she was “not advocating for getting rid of the airports. They serve other needs specific to the region, not just commercial flights.”

For example, the Nîmes airport is a national hub for air rescue and civil protection operations, meanwhile ‘pelicandromes’ which are used to fight forest fires, are installed at the Béziers, Carcassone and Perpignan airports. 

Instead, Renet and the Cours de Comptes advocated for streamlining the management of airports to a regional, rather than local level. This would help to avoid overlapping flights – like a Pau-Paris and a Tarbes-Paris that take off around the same time.

The situation may also change in 2027, when the European Commission is due to examine public aid given to airports and whether large subsidies given to airports constitutes unfair competition.

There are also climate concerns, as France moves to invest more train transport to reduce carbon emissions. In 2021, the country passed a law banning domestic air links of less than two hours and 30 minutes when an alternative train option exists.

However, this law has so far only banned three routes: Orly-Bordeaux, Orly-Lyon, and Orly-Nantes.

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