“The opinion of the country is that too many holidays are given in schools.” This statement does not follow the recent declarations of the current Minister of National Education Élisabeth Borne and the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron, who wish to shorten the time of school holidays, but comes from a letter from the principal of the municipal college of Beauvais (Oise) to the rector of the academy of Amiens, dated October 21, 1835!
The subject, on which the Citizens’ Convention on Children’s Times, which will meet from June 20 until the end of November 2025, must reflect, is in fact as old as it is complex. Have the length and timing of school holidays always been the same for two centuries? How important is summer vacation in this annual calendar? Did this change a lot during the 19th century?e and XXe centuries?
In the 19th century, summer holidays with fluctuating dates
In the 19th centurye century, school life and vacation time are essentially punctuated by agricultural and religious landmarks. Following the Guizot law on the organization of primary education (1833), the duration of vacations was set at six weeks (maximum) by the statute of April 25, 1834, the first general regulation on elementary schools.
The start and end dates of the holidays are determined by the prefects, in conjunction with the departmental councils of public education from 1854, then by the rectors from 1887. They therefore vary locally between mid-August (after the 15th, the Catholic feast of the Assumption) and the beginning of October.
Until the end of the 19th centurye century, there is no such thing as a “small vacation”, only a day off on the 1ster January, July 14 and the main Catholic holidays.
Until the end of the 19th centurye century, the new regulations confirm these terms. In a ministerial circular dated 1er August 1866, Victor Duruy, Minister of Public Education, considered that it was not “it is not possible to set a uniform date for the opening of the holidays throughout France: the climate, the cultures are not the same everywhere, and (…) there is a great interest in making the holidays coincide with the time when children would abandon schools for work in the fields”.
In secondary education, vacations are also six weeks, then increase to eight and twelve weeks, in 1891 and 1912: they extend from 1er August then from July 14 to September 30 and thus correspond to the leisure periods of bourgeois families in secondary education and the time of major agricultural work (harvest, grape harvest) in primary education (people’s school).
Creation of “little vacations” in the interwar period
Until the end of the 19th centurye century, there is no such thing as a “small vacation”, only a day off on the 1ster January, July 14 and during the main Catholic holidays: Christmas, All Saints’ Day, Pentecost, Mardi Gras and Easter.
In the interwar period, the trend was towards convergence of the annual school calendars of primary and secondary establishments. The duration of summer holidays was thus extended to two months in primary schools in 1922, from July 31 to September 30. The Easter holidays now last a week and a half, two days before Easter and the following week.
From the beginning of the 1930s, local authorities tended to at least align the departure dates for all levels of education. In 1933, the deputy André Cornu organized a referendum among all the general councilors of France, whom he consulted on the question of setting the start of the holidays on 1er July for secondary education and July 14 for primary education. He justifies such a measure with health arguments: the fatigue of young students and the consequences of the intense heat of July which overwhelms them, while these are the longest and most profitable days for “revive overworked organisms”.
There are also economic issues: fixing vacation dates can be “prejudicial to business and commerce”according to the Chamber of Commerce of Brittany and the general union of ciders and cider fruits – children always constitute an additional agricultural workforce. Academy inspectors put forward educational arguments, particularly concerning the organization of end-of-year exams.
In 1938, the length of summer vacations for primary schools was aligned with those for middle and high schools by Jean Zay, Minister of National Education, and increased to ten weeks (from July 14 to September 30) for all levels of education, following the law on paid leave.
It was in 1938-1939 that the annual school calendar, now national, formalized the Christmas holidays, from December 23 to January 3.
This alignment is also revealing of educational and social issues, as Jean Zay explains in his memoirs (Memories and loneliness): “Educators have been reporting for a long time that, in the second half of July, in the heatwave, schoolwork became meaningless; we limited ourselves to dozing on the benches and sighing while looking at the windows. Families, for their part, complained of not being able to organize their vacations as they wished, provided they had one child in high school and another in primary school. The first was free on July 15, the second on the 31st. I decided that both would leave together on the 15th. But as it was not appropriate for this unification to result in poor children being left on the street, it was accompanied by a new and large organization of daycare centers and summer camps.”
In 1938-1939, the annual school calendar, now national, formalized the Christmas holidays, from December 23 to January 3, included holidays the week of Mardi Gras (in February), while those of Easter now lasted two weeks.
Since the 1950s, lengthening and multiplication of vacation times
From the 1950s, the current system was gradually put in place, in a context of massification and reform of the education system. In 1959, the summer holidays were moved by fifteen days, from 1er July to September 15. They always last ten weeks at all levels (for thirty-seven weeks of lessons) but, in reality, the school year is often shortened by the organization of exams and orientation procedures in secondary education. Also from 1959, five weeks of vacation punctuated the school year for all students, including one released and shared between All Saints’ Day and mid-February to break up two extended first terms. The other four are spread between Christmas and Easter.
From 1965, the academies were divided into two zones, in order to organize staggered departures (by ten days) for the summer holidays, but this zoning was abandoned in 1969. In 1967-1968 the first zoning was created for the February holidays. In 1969-1970, the February holidays (like those of All Saints’ Day) were doubled to eight days, then reduced to four days from 1970-1971. It’s about responding “in the wish of the majority of parents that their professional occupations prevent them from taking care of their children on working days”in the words of the Minister of National Education at the time, Olivier Guichard (1969-1972).
It was in 1972, after the Winter Olympics in Grenoble (1968), that the winter holidays (one week) were created and permanently established, as well as the division of the academies into three zones. For some headteachers, this week of vacation is “an educational aberration if we look at it from the children’s point of view”because the “small holidays demobilize students”. This debate also involves powerful economic interests, with the tourism industry and transport. Their objective is twofold: to avoid congestion on the roads and the concentration of occupation of vacation spots.
In 1986, Rector Magnin’s report, submitted to Minister René Monory, also recommended a reduction in vacations compensated by a reduction in class days. The debate on the organization of school holidays joins that of the organization of the day and the week, until now thought of separately. It was from the 1990s, as part of the debate on the 4, 4.5 or 5 day week, that summer holidays were reduced by twelve days for schools having chosen the 4 day week and returning early at the end of August (the annual hourly volume of lessons must, in fact, remain the same for all).
Previously, the 7/2 annual calendar – that is to say seven weeks of work and two weeks of vacation – was adopted by Jean-Pierre Chevènement for the 1986-1987 school year, with a nine-week summer vacation scheduled from June 30 to September 3. The orientation law on education of 1989, known as the “Jospin law”, specifies that the school year now includes thirty-six weeks, divided into five work periods of comparable length, separated by four vacation periods. This law also provides for a school calendar set for a cycle of three years. The All Saints’ Day holidays vary between one week and ten days until 2013: they then increase to two weeks and the summer holidays to eight weeks.
It was also in the 1980s and 1990s that the question of the organization of school holidays was linked to the quality of students’ learning and to the challenges of combating academic failure, which emerged as a social and political problem. This is notably one of the flagship measures of Jacques Chirac’s program during the 1995 presidential campaign, which the RPR candidate led on the theme of “social fracture”: reducing summer vacations by three weeks in order to set up a five-day school week with reduced schedules.
In 2013, the Minister of National Education Vincent Peillon also recommended shortening the summer holidays from eight to six weeks after the difficult implementation of his reform of weekly and daily school schedules.
By reopening a debate that he himself had closed in 2017 and announcing yet another consultation on the subject (after those of 2011 and 2012 in particular), Emmanuel Macron has probably just rekindled the controversy… in the interest of the students?
