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TOURISM

Five suggestions for places to visit over the Easter weekend in France

With a long weekend on the horizon, you might be planning a trip. Here are our suggestions for places to visit over the Easter weekend.

Five suggestions for places to visit over the Easter weekend in France
Members of the Giant Omelette Brotherhood of Bessieres cook a giant omelette as part of Easter celebrations on the main square of Bessieres, southern France. (Photo by REMY GABALDA / AFP)

Visit Provins for a medieval egg hunt

Provins is a town not far from Paris, to the north. Known for its impressive medieval architecture and high ramparts, the village was once a major trading hub. 

These days, it is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is particularly worth visiting during Easter because the town organises a historical Easter egg hunt, where each child is given a map and several riddles to search for chocolate eggs across town. Children up to 12 years old can participate.

No booking is necessary, but the Provins Tourist Office advises arriving by 2pm to have enough time to participate in all of the festivities. The hunt will take place on Sunday, April 9th and Monday, April 10th from 2pm to 5pm. You can find more information HERE.

Enjoy a gigantic Easter omelette in Bessières

A tradition that goes back to Napoleonic times, thousands of locals turn out in the south western French village of Bessières to have a taste of the annual giant Easter omelette. If you are a fan of an egg-heavy Easter brunch, then this might be the location for you.

For the last 43 years, every Easter Monday, Bessières has cracked 15,000 eggs to prepare a giant omelette in honour of the holiday. 

Dozens of volunteers are required, along with several kilos of duck fat and a fair amount of salt, pepper and the local piment d’Espelette pepper to the giant pot, which measures up to four metres in diameter. It typically takes about 30 to 40 minutes for the omelette to cook, and once finished it is distributed amongst the thousands of visitors who flock to Bessières to enjoy the festival.

The tradition reportedly stems from Napoleon’s visit to the town where he ate a wonderful omelette before bed, which was so nice, he ordered a huge one be made for his army to eat before they left the next morning.

Shop the Easter markets in eastern France

Alsace is known primarily for its winter Christmas markets, namely those in Strasbourg and Colmar, but if you could not attend the marchés de noël you have another opportunity. Several towns and villages across the region offer Easter, or spring markets, too.

Colmar’s spring market surrounds its charming 14th century church, offering plenty of authentic Alsatian products. During Easter weekend, chocolate bunnies, eggs and the traditional “Lamala” cake (made in a lamb-shaped mould) will be sold at stands. You can learn more HERE.

If you visit eastern France over Easter, you may also notice that compared with the rest of France, most people are off work on Good Friday. 

READ MORE: Why is Good Friday not a holiday in (most of) France?

The ‘grand’ Easter egg hunt at La Rochelle 

For those looking to enjoy Easter weekend near the beach, La Rochelle is a great option.

The city also offers a ‘grand chasse aux œufs‘ for any children who want to participate. Starting at 2:30pm at the café de la Renaissance near the town hall, children can begin the treasure hunt that will involve having to find the answers to riddles hung on windows across the city. Participation is free.

Keep in mind however, that the festivities will occur on Wednesday, April 12th, not during the Easter weekend itself.

Over the weekend, there are still many activities to take part in at La Rochelle, including events celebrating Japanese cherry blossom trees and spring time festivities. You can find more information on what to do in La Rochelle HERE

Visit Monet’s water lilies in Giverny 

While many of the original water lilies paintings are located in the l’Orangerie museum near Paris’ Tuileries and the Musée Marmottan Monet in the 12th arrondissement, the location that inspired them is a short distance from the capital by train or car. 

Giverny, located in Normandy, is home to impressionist painter Claude Monet’s former home, as well as the pond that inspired his famous water lilies series. The garden and home are open to visitors, and they are particularly known for having a wide array of flowers. The location will be open over Easter weekend, a great time to enjoy the blossoms and spring weather.

You can reserve tickets in advance HERE.

READ MORE: 11 places to visit and festivals to enjoy in France this Spring

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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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