Have Catholics escaped the worst?

For Olivier, the Pascal weekend has always been crowned. Not so much for its religious meaning – “I am Catholic but not practicing”, specifies this technical sales representative in the Yonne – as it was the only moment, with Christmas, where siblings met in the family home, until their parents’ death. Olivier appreciated this time that he stretched until Easter Monday, a holiday. “Three days of leave, it really allows you to decompress,” he considers. This Monday also allows you to go without pressure to the family stronghold. So Sylvain left the Paris region every year to join the Jura at Easter. “Thanks to Monday, we don’t need to run away during Sunday dessert to catch a train. We take the time to eat and watch the children chasing the eggs, ”he argues.

This time may soon be over. Because the Prime Minister, François Bayrou, proposed, during the presentation of his savings plan on July 15 for the 2026 budget, to suppress two holidays, “for example Easter Monday and May 8”, while saying open to alternative dates. This double abolition could bring between 1 and 4 billion euros to the State because it would increase tax revenues.

For Jérôme Fourquet, political scientist at Ifop, the Prime Minister pursues two other goals by offering such a measure. First, that of sending as a message to the French company that it must get back to work. “It is true that the French no longer want to work as much,” says Jérôme Fourquet. In thirty years, France has gone from 1,860 hours worked per year per person on average at 1,600 hours today. Or 260 hours of “lost” per year. It is partly linked to the development of a leisure company. Today, 25 % of French people say that their work is very important in their lives, against 60 % in 1990. ”

A silent downgrade

By including Easter Monday in his savings plan, François Bayrou, a practicing Catholic, intends to mean that no one will be spared, including believers. A way to protect yourself against any accusation of favoritism, at the risk of fueling a feeling of cultural erasure. Because for some Catholics, this measure sounds like a new sign of silent downgrading. “His plan is wide,” recalls Jérôme Fourquet. He touches everyone, from retirees to civil servants. If François Bayrou had spared Christians, he would have been criticized for him. ”

The fact remains that it is not trivial, for the political scientist, that the abolition of the public holiday on Monday of Easter was proposed by a Catholic like François Bayrou: “The accounting logic now prevails over the sacredness of religious festivals. It is a new sign of the progressive decline of the Catholic matrix in France ”, in a calendar now indifferent to the great Christian festivals.

To justify his choice of Easter Monday, François Bayrou argued that this day had “no religious significance”. Which is not true. This Monday is a remainder of an ancient tradition, that of the Easter octave established by the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century. During these eight days of Easter Sunday, specific prayers were pronounced during daily offices to remind you that the resurrection of Christ continues beyond Easter. “These eight days were also devoted to the investigation of the baptized of Easter night,” lights up Father Gilles Drouin, director of the Higher Institute of Liturgy. It was, for the bishops, to come back with them to what they had experienced at this very powerful moment. It was a time of mystagogy, that is to say from initiation to mystery. ”

On August 15, “it would have been more serious”

On occasion, bishops resuscitate tradition. The diocese of Paris has offered catechèses this year for aspiring to baptism during three Mondays following Easter. But it is clear that Easter Monday has long lost meaning. “It is less inhabited by the liturgy than the other days of the Easter Galaxy,” concedes Father Drouin. “If the Prime Minister had targeted on August 15, it would have been more serious, because it is a very alive day for Catholics,” he continues. For these reasons, the priest refuses to live as an assault with regard to Catholicism the possible end of the Patient Monday holiday: “This will not make him disappear. Catholics will always be able to celebrate it during vespers, after work. ” The bishop of Carcassonne and Narbonne, Mgr Bruno Valentin, abounds in his sense by affirming: “I sincerely think that it is not a religious subject.*”

To enter into force, the measure must appear in the 2026 budget, presented in the fall. However, the latter will have to pass between the caudine forks of the National Assembly – with, at the end, a very real risk of censorship.