Centralized what?

Vacations!

Two Saturdays mornings ago, as I was headed to my local market, the bus to Orly airport passed by, completely packed at noon – no point in it making the next stop, there was no way that even one more traveler could be squeezed in! And, for an instant, I wondered why it was so packed.

And then I realized what was going on! France is a republic with a very centralized administration - many things are decided in Paris for the entire county, far from our federal system where every state is free to control many things – schools, school calendars, voting systems, open hours of polling places, etc. – including school vacations (up through high school though some universities follow this as well). There’s a 10 day vacation at the end of October for Toussaint and that Saturday morning was the beginning of that vacation – so students, teachers, families were heading out of town in large numbers. The Toussaint and Christmas vacations are the same for all of France but for the winter and spring vacations France is divided into 3 zones and the start of these 2-week vacations is staggered by a week – for the winter vacation it means a longer season for the ski resorts and less crowding than if the entire country tried to go on vacation at once!


So, depending on the purpose and season of your next trip to France, you should possibly consult the school vacation calendar before booking

http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid3002/calendrier-scolaire-2007-2010.html

Isn’t life simple when there aren’t 50 variations?