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SCHOOLS

Reader question: Is there any kind of logic behind France’s school holiday zones?

Throughout February, some French schools will be on holiday - but the exact dates depend on where you live, and this light lead you to wonder about the logic used to decide on the French school holiday zoning system.

Published: 11 February 2021 14:57 CET
Updated: 10 February 2023 10:02 CET
Reader question: Is there any kind of logic behind France's school holiday zones?
Photo: AFP

Question: Is there any kind of logic to how France divides itself up into zones for school holidays or did someone just pick town names out of a hat?

Certain school holidays occur at different times of year in different parts of France, but unlike countries like the UK where this evolved over time based on – among other things – the date of the potato harvest in different parts of the country, the French system is a deliberate creation that has a specific purpose.

Here’s how it works.

Mainland France is divided up into three zones – A, B and C which include different regional education authorities known as académies – basically a local education authority under the Ministry of Education (see map below). Each académie includes several départements.

READ MORE: Calendar: School and public holidays in France for 2023

The Christmas, summer and Toussaint (All Saints) holidays happen on the same dates through the country, but the Easter and February holidays happen at different times in different zones.

This isn’t a particularly historic thing, it’s only been in place since the 1960s and it was created for a very specific reason – to help out the tourist sector.

Instead of the whole country being on holiday in the same fortnight, the holidays instead span a month and mean that tourist businesses such as ski resorts, hotels and beach resort owners get a longer ‘peak’ in order to accommodate everyone.

A side effect of this is reduced traffic congestion around the spring holidays, although the start and finish of the Christmas and summer holidays – when it frequently seems like the whole of France is on the road – are definitely days to avoid travelling.

Zone A comprises the academies of Besançon, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Limoges, Lyon, Poitiers 

Zone B – Aix-Marseille, Amiens, Caen, Lille, Nancy-Metz, Nantes, Nice, Orléans-Tours, Reims, Rennes, Rouen, Strasbourg

Zone C – Créteil, Montpellier, Paris, Toulouse, Versailles

The zones are created so that they have a roughly equal number of pupils each. So although Zones A and B seem much larger, zone C contains the greater Paris area, by far the most densely populated place in France.

The zones have a vague logic as dividing France into three horizontal stripes with Zone B in the north, Zone A in the centre and Zone C in the south . . . except for the small matter of Zone C also including the Paris region and the ‘northern’ Zone B encompassing Marseille and Nice.

Oh, and Corscia sets its own holiday dates like the French overseas territories do, even though it’s a part of mainland France for all other administrative purposes.

There have been several reorganisations of the zones over the years as demographics shifted, the most recent being in 2015.

2023 holiday dates

Winter half term

Zone A (Besançon, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Limoges, Lyon and Poitiers) winter holidays start on Saturday, February 4th. Students will go back to school on Monday, February 20th.

Zone B (Aix-Marseille, Amiens, Caen, Lille, Nancy-Metz, Nantes, Nice, Orléans-Tours, Reims, Rennes, Rouen, and Strasbourg) winter holidays will start on Saturday, February 11th. Students will go back to school on Monday, February 27th.

Zone C (Paris, Créteil, Versailles, Montpellier, and Toulouse) winter holidays will start on Saturday, February 18th. Students will go back to school on Monday, March 6th.

Spring holiday

Zone A schools (Besançon, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Limoges, Lyon and Poitiers) will break up on Saturday, April 8th and pupils will return back to class on Monday, April 24th.

Zone B schools (Aix-Marseille, Amiens, Caen, Lille, Nancy-Metz, Nantes, Nice, Orléans-Tours, Reims, Rennes, Rouen, and Strasbourg) will break up on Saturday, April 15th and pupils will return back to class on Tuesday, May 2nd. 

Zone C schools (Paris, Créteil, Versailles, Montpellier, and Toulouse) will break up on Saturday, April 22nd and pupils will return back to class on Tuesday, May 9th. 

Grandes Vacances

The summer holidays will begin for all students in France on Saturday, July 8th.

La rentrée (the start of the new school year)

Students across France will return to school after summer break on Monday, September 4th.

For the full holiday calendar click HERE

If you have a question about any aspect of life in France, email us at [email protected] and we will do our best to answer it

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HEALTH

REVEALED: How long does it take to get a doctor’s appointment in France?

When it comes to seeing a doctor in France, you can wait as little as three days to as long as 42 to get an appointment, according to new data. But waiting times depend heavily on the different specialties and where you live.

Published: 23 April 2024 10:07 CEST
REVEALED: How long does it take to get a doctor's appointment in France?

In France, half of all GP appointments are available within three days from the time of booking, according to a study carried out by French booking website Doctolib, using data from its platform.

But patients have to wait longer to see specialist doctors, Docotlib reveals.

Half of all appointments with pediatricians are available in less than a week.

This is followed by dentists and midwives, with an average period of 11 days before the first available appointment. Next, there were psychiatrists (16 days), gynecologists (22 days), and ophthalmologists (25 days).

The Doctolib site allows patients in France to book the next available appointments with most GPs and other medical specialists via its easy to use booking platform.

READ MORE: How to use: French medical website Doctolib

As for the specialties where patients have to wait the longest to see a doctor – dermatologists were second to last – with the average person waiting 36 days. The longest waits were to see cardiologists with patients often having to wait at least 42 days for an appointment.

The medical platform said there was an explanation for the significant differences in wait times: “Dermatology typically requires less urgent care, while most emergencies related to cardiology are referred to the hospital.”

As for physiotherapists, the only para-medical profession looked into within the study, half of all appointments were available within less than six days.

What about video consultations?

The study also looked at the use of the ‘tele-consultation’ (video appointments) tool, and it found that opting for this can significantly speed up appointment wait times.

When using the tele-consultation option, the median wait times for GP and pediatrician appointments dropped to just one day. For midwives, it went down to two days, and then four days for gynecologists, seven days for cardiologists, eight days for dermatologists, and 17 days for psychiatrists.

What about regional disparities?

According to OECD data, France has 32 doctors for every 10,000 people, slightly below the OECD average of 37.

However, they are not equally distributed – about a third of France is considered to be a ‘medical desert’, meaning there is a shortage of doctors . It’s usually used to mean places that have a shortage of GPs or family doctors, which can make it hard for patients to find a regular doctor to register with.

READ MORE: MAP: Where in France has the best access to healthcare?

The Docotlib study noted that their findings do not reveal the disparities between France’s départements, and even within départements themselves.

“About 15 départements across France were found to be in a particularly challenging position regarding wait times in comparison to the rest of the country.

“[These areas] saw median waiting times at least twice as long as the average for at least three of the different specialties,” Doctolib noted.

These départements with the longest wait times were Gers, Saône-et-Loire, Nièvre and Territoire de Belfort, Loiret, Cher, Deux-Sèvres, Ardèche, Eure, Calvados, Manche, Loire-Atlantique and Côtes d’Armor, Pas-de-Calais.

Have things got better or worse?

In terms of whether the situation has improved in recent years, well the data shows there has not been much of change.

Between 2021 and 2023, “the median appointment wait times for different specialties either only slightly changed or did not change at all, which is an encouraging sign given the increase in demand for post-Covid care and the decline in the number of doctors available,” Doctolib wrote.

Doctolib carried out the study using data from appointments made using its platform. It is important to note that medical appointments in France can be secured a number of different ways, with other websites available, as well as the possibility to request appointments in person or on the phone.

As a result, GP consultations made via Doctolib accounted for a little under half of the total GP visits in France.

The platform recorded 87.6 million GP visits in 2023 via its website, out of more than 200 million total GP consultations in France.

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