August in Paris: When the city empties out, locals left behind rejoice

In Aug, the typically bustling Saturday morning market across from the Paris Museum of Modern Art is a whisper of itself. Gone are the flower stalls, the fishmongers, the line for hot crepes.

The cheese vendors have disappeared, except one run by Philippe Perette. "This is Paris in Aug," he says, cutting a piece of vieux Comte. "It's not normal Paris."Normal Paris is crowded, haughty, frenetic. It's a place where people jockey for space, on the subways, in the streets and in the cafes that spill across the sidewalks. "Closed for vacation, opening Aug 31, 2025. Thanks," reads the handwritten note affixed to a newspaper kiosk.

A note on a pharmacy announces that it is closed for three weeks in Aug and tells customers to "plan ahead for your medical and health product needs.

"The city feels as if it has been tipped over and shaken - hundreds of thousands of its residents spilling out toward "les grandes vacances," or "the big vacation," meaning the summer break. The butchers and bankers, barbers and bookkeepers have almost all gone. Two leading newspapers air reruns of their daily podcasts for the month.

An email from the foreign ministry's press office sent out July 17 announces that the office will be closed until Sept.Vacations have been stitched into French identity since 1936, when the short-lived Socialist govt of Leon Blum introduced two weeks of paid holidays. To help the population learn the art of vacationing, he named the country's first minister of sports and leisure, who offered discounted train tickets and subsidized guesthouses around the country.

Since then, the country's muscular labour unions have repeatedly pushed to expand those weeks to five and to institute a 35-hour work-week law that translates to overtime paid in extra days off for many workers.

That's on top of 11 public holidays.Here, vacations were so important that govt subsidized holiday camps where factory workers could get their fill of French culture, attending classical music performances and art shows, said Bertrand Reau, author of the book "The French and Vacations."

Still today, the state helps subsidize vacations for low-income families, and big businesses often offer holiday discount vouchers to their employees. An Ipsos vacation poll of 23 countries taken over the winter showed that 82% of those surveyed in France intended to take a vacation in the summer - mostly to a French beach.After Aug comes Sept, which in France is known as "la rentree," or "the reentry," a rush back to school, to work, to politics, to protests, to jammed subways and to crowded bike lanes. As so many take time off in Aug, the return feels like a collective new beginning.