The French are on Holiday - AGAIN!

The French folk over here are on holiday again. They have lots of holiday days these French people. Mum says they have about a thousand holiday days a year. I don’t know what a thousand is, but it sounds like more than ten. These holiday days are called ‘bank’ holidays in England. Anyway, some of these French holiday days fall on a Thursday or a Tuesday. This week it’s a Tuesday. When they fall on a Thursday or a Tuesday, the French folk can’t see the point in going work on the following Friday or the preceding Monday. So, they have what’s called a ‘pont’, which mum says means ‘bridge’, to the weekend. That means that they have four days off instead of just the one. Then, as well as all these special holiday days, they have at least another five weeks holiday every year. Mum often goes to the local bread shop or butchers and comes back gnashing her teeth saying “they’re on bloody conjay again". I think she means holiday. I don’t know where she gets this ‘conjay’ from.

The French like holidays. At the peak of the tourist season in August nothing’s open. Most of the restaurants and little shops are shut because the owners want to take a holiday. Mum can’t understand that, she says “…who on earth would close in the middle of the main tourist season if you’re a restaurant or gift shop? Only the French. Why don’t the French who work in the tourist industry take their holidays when it’s quiet?”

I think she’s got a point. After all, the French only holiday in France, they don’t like going abroad. So at the height of the tourist season and wherever they go nothing’s open, you’d think the penny would drop wouldn’t you?

The French like to strike too. According to mum any excuse is ‘down tools’. There’s usually a strike every month for one reason or another.

The French like to kiss each other as well. Mum doesn’t like going to a party or a wedding or anything where there will be lots and lots of people because she says it takes five hours just to greet everyone, because everyone must be kissed, and then five hours to say goodbye, because everyone must be kissed again. You’d think there’d be viruses passing around like hotcakes wouldn’t you?

Poor Mr Sarkozy, it must be hard for him to be in charge of a country in which nobody wants to work, everybody wants to kiss each other all the time and where the only conversation is about food, wine or holidays.