September is such a relief after France's intense summer

Most of us have watched just enough Bridgerton to know a ‘season’ when we see one: the trussed-up debutantes, the quadrilles and coy glances, fans perpetually fluttering, lips forever quivering, matriarchs rapaciously matchmaking and rakes conveniently reforming.

Beneath all the silly tropes and silks, however, a season is essentially just a dense web of events that everyone in the same social world understands, generally packed into the hottest months of the year and underpinned by some degree of peer pressure to attend.

We’re so used to seeing it in a British setting that it is hard these days to think beyond the aristocratic elements and Royal Ascots, the Pimm’s and the polo clubs.

It is particularly weird to imagine that a season could ever appear in a country that tried to kill off its noblesse and pretends to take all of August off to sit on a beach and chain-sip citrons pressés.

France has its own social season

The reality is that French spring and summers are just as much of a social marathon as they are in Regency romances. We don’t have masked balls every fortnight but – my God! – we reeled through four brocantes last Sunday alone.

In 2026, no one’s leaving calling cards on silver trays but we’re somehow fielding 200 WhatsApp notifications just to arrange apéros with the Parisian second-home owners nearby.

And what we lack in champagne-soaked Henleys, we make up for here in Nièvre by propping up the buvette at the Descente Bidon, a carnival of bizarre floats fashioned from plastic drums (bidons) that barrel down the River Yonne each August in what the local tourist office describes as “l’événement le plus fun et le plus déjanté (wacky) de l’été”.

In between all this are the music and street theatre festivals, night markets, outdoor cinemas, fireworks, July 14, and countless other communal knees-ups.

At all these events we see the same faces, mutually swear off daytime drinking forever, and immediately find an excuse to meet up once more in a couple of days to do it all again.

Why summer becomes so intense

Frankly, it is exhausting and reaches an intensity in France, specifically, because of a perfect storm of cultural norms. For a start, the entire nation synchronises its time off during the traditional mass holiday period known gaily as les grandes vacances.

Most choose to vacation within the country rather than go abroad, swelling the populations of coastal resorts and rural communities.

At the same time, a sizeable number of local businesses shut for their own family getaways, concentrating crowds into an ever-dwindling number of cafes, eateries and attractions. In such a squeeze, the chances of running into old acquaintances or forming new friendships naturally balloon.

And so opportunities for further interaction snowball – an entirely unsuitable word because, even before we start to think about the colder months, they just as quickly stop.

September brings relief

September is here. School starts, work picks up, and socialising skids to a halt. By Halloween, rural France will have gone full hikikomori and no one will be leaving their house at all.

The diary will revert to routine dentist appointments and halcyon pages that bloom pure blank. And I say, bring it on. I’ll light the fire, open a good book, and nothing will induce me to make it Jane Austen or Julia Quinn.