France’s summer holidays offer students a long, leisurely break from their school routine, but if the government gets its way the eight-week respite could soon be shorter.
In early 2025, then Education Minister Elisabeth Borne said she wanted to reduce the summer holidays in 2026 as "long breaks result in a drop in standards for the most vulnerable students".
Her comments echoed those of President Emmanuel Macron who, in a 2023 interview with Le Point, said there were “too many school holidays” in France.
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In November, a report was published by the Convention citoyenne sur les temps de l’enfant following a six-month consultation period to discuss how best to structure children’s timetables and school holidays.
Among 20 major proposals, the report suggested extending the school year and shortening the summer holidays to better distribute learning, adopting a weekly five-day academic timetable starting in primary school, and organising two holiday zones instead of three.
“It is a big issue right now because some studies suggest that during the holidays, there is a gap that increases between lower and higher SES (socio-economic status) students,” said Pascal Bressoux, professor of educational sciences at the University of Grenoble Alpes.
Availability of support
While some students have supportive families and the resources to travel and take part in cultural activities during the summer holidays, others do not.
“School is a way to diminish the cultural gap between students. The less school you have, the wider the gap,” said Professor Bressoux.
One solution, he suggests, is reducing summer holidays by a week, although this would need to be balanced with other considerations, including the impact on tourism and economic activity.
“I know that many parents return to work around mid-August, so it wouldn’t be a problem to send their children back to school, for example, during the last week of August.
"And I don’t think it would be such a problem for tourism because the last week of August is not really peak tourist activity.”
Despite a reputation for being generous, France’s summer break is by no means the longest in Europe. In Italy, students enjoy 11 to 14 weeks off, while in Bulgaria primary school children have between 13 and 15 weeks.
“It’s not that bad in France,” conceded Professor Bressoux, “Spain, Italy and Portugal have longer vacations.”
The shortest summer breaks are around five weeks in Denmark, and around six weeks in countries including Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
However, France ranks among the highest in Europe for the total number of days off for school students.
This is due to generous two-week breaks for Toussaint (November), Christmas (December), the winter holiday (February) and spring (April), as well as no school for primary children on Wednesdays in many areas.
Professor Bressoux believes another issue is the distribution of learning: “We have a schedule problem in France. The problem is not necessarily holidays but rather the school day, which is overloaded.
“What is very different in France is the number of days off school per year. With only four days of school per week, there are three days off, plus mid-term holidays. In this respect we top the rankings in Europe, which is not good.”
Break distribution
Given that students have so much time off, learning is condensed into a short period of time. A better distribution would benefit children, said Professor Bressoux.
“Scientifically, we know that the more spread out the learning, the better the learning. So if you have very few school days, this is not good.”
Rather than shortening the school holidays, a more impactful change could be adding a school day on a Wednesday, Professor Bressoux said, although this would face opposition from teachers.
“That’s a pity because most studies say it would be better if we had fewer hours during the school day, and more school days.”
At present, it is up to individual communes to decide whether schools open on a Wednesday; 95% of communes choose not to.
“The first target should be one more day per week,” Professor Bressoux said.
Reducing the summer holidays to “maybe six or seven weeks” could also be beneficial, he added, insisting that 10 weeks was “way too long” and six weeks was an “acceptable minimum”.
What he is not suggesting is that long holidays are entirely a bad thing for students.
“During the holidays, children don't gain as much in terms of knowledge as during school periods, but this doesn’t mean you don’t need a break,” he said.
“We all need holidays, we need long periods when we will forget school problems or anxiety, to rest. Children need holidays for motivation, rest, or just living a child’s life, exploring new things.”
