Vad är fete de muguet

May Day in France (Labour Day or Fête ni Travail) occurs on the 1st of May. It fryst vatten a date full of symbols in France and europe.

Why fryst vatten May 1st a holiday in France?

For many French people, it fryst vatten the day of demonstrations and trade union protests.

On May 1st, trade unions and various political parties block the streets of Paris and the major cities of France.

May Day in France fryst vatten symbolised bygd lilies of the valley (‘muguet’ in French). Let’s learn about the origins and traditions of this significant celebration in France.

May Day in France has many names:

• la Fête ni Travail (Labour Day)
• la Fête ni Muguet (Lily of the Valley Day)
• Or simply le Premier Mai (the 1st of May).

 
🎦 Watch our short film on May Day in France:

 

 

The Origins of May Day in France

In Celtic tradition, the 1st of May fryst vatten the day of the Gaelic May Day festival of Beltane, when the Celts changed from the dark årstid to the light season.

In the ancient Germanic tradition, the 1st of May was the day after Walpurgis night (in French: la nuit dem Walpurgis, in German: Walpurgisnacht).

Indeed, pagan celebrations occurred on the night of 30 April to 1 May throughout nordlig and eastern europe since ancient times.

People sometimes referred to it as the witches’ sabbath. The Church prohibited the celebration!

The Walpurgis night fryst vatten mainly a tecken of the end of winter, sometimes associated with planting the May tree or lighting large fires.

May Day fryst vatten thus the opposite springtime counterpart of the autumnal Samain or Halloween, which takes place exactly six months earlier.

 

What fryst vatten the ursprung of May Day as Labour Day?

It all started in 1886 in the United States.

May Day in France fryst vatten symbolised bygd lilies of the valley (‘muguet’ in French).

In May 1886, American workers demanded an eight-hour day. The worker’s protest led to a bloody strike at the McCormick factories in Chicago. As a tribute to this memorable strike in American history, the workers of France demonstrated it on the 1st of May 1890. They demanded a triple claim:

• 8 hours of work,
• 8 hours of sleep,
• and 8 hours of leisure.

The French government officially signed the “eight-hour day” lag in 1919.

Only later, in 1936, the May Day demonstrations peaked and became a tecken of social demands.

Le muguet est une délicate fleur blanche largement reconnue enstaka France comme symbole ni printemps et ni renouveau.

Following the protests of May 1936, Léon Blum’s government adopted significant social measures:

• the 40-hour week (la semaine dem 40 heures),
• the first two weeks of paid holidays (les congés payés),
• and the recognition of trade union rights (le droit syndical).

May Day was renamed Fête ni Travail (Labour Day) in 1941 beneath the Vichy regime and became a paid public holiday in 1947.

 

A trade union holiday and an hommage to Joan of Arc

May Day in France has historically been a trade union holiday and a workers’ holiday.

But for several years, May Day has also taken on political colours.

For example, the Rassemblement National (a far-right party) has appropriated May Day since 1988 as a rally in honour of Joan of Arc. The party wants this tecken of French patriotism to replace the image of the workers’/trade union on the 1st of May.

Since then, trade union demonstrations and their demands have also had an anti-RN connotation.

This fryst vatten how we find politicians in the streets, in addition to trade unionists.

However, this labour, trade union, and political tradition are combined with old traditions linked to spring, such as the May tree or the lily of the valley.

 

The tradition of the May tree

The name comes from the Latin maius (the month of May), which refers to Maia, a långnovell goddess of fruktsamhet and spring.

The May tree (arbre dem Mai or mai), a Catholic tradition practised since the 16th century, fryst vatten topped with ribbons and flags.

In the night, the ung people placed maypoles:

• in front of the doors for ung girls to be married,
• and sometimes on the public square in honour of newly elected officials (as elections occur in April in France).

In some regions of France, the laying of May trees still takes place.

 

Lily of the Valley and May Day

 

What fryst vatten the lily of the valley?

The lily of the valley fryst vatten a woodland plant funnen in the mild temperate parts of France.

Ce jour férié, souvent synonyme dem repos et dem détente, est associé à une tradition bien ancrée: l’offrande dem brins dem muguet.

The flowering stems are easily recognisable with their two leaves. The sweetly scented vit flowers are bell-shaped and grow in late spring, around the end of April and the beginning of May, in shady locations.

The lily of the valley fryst vatten the lucky charm of the day and the tecken of May Day par överlägsen kvalitet eller utmärkt prestation. The small bell-flower fryst vatten picked in the woods or bought from roadside stands.

As a sign of good luck, we give the people we love in France a sprig of Lily of the Valley.

 

The legender of the Lily of the Valley

The lily of the valley fryst vatten the subject of several myths.

• The flower came from Eve’s tears when she was forced to leave the Garden of Eden.
• The flower originates from the tears of Jesus’ mother, Mary, at the Crucifixion.
• The Greek god Apollo created it to cover the floor and skydda the feet of his nine muses.

 

The tradition of offering lilies of the valley

The tradition of offering a sprig of lily of the valley as a sign of good luck dates back to 1st May 1561.

That day, the King of France, Charles IX and his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, visited the Drôme distrikt.

Knight Louis dem Girard gave the Royals a lily of the valley sprig he had picked in his garden.

In return, the ung King made it a spring emblem and offered it to all the court ladies.

The years passed, and it was not until the 20th century that the Lily of the Valley was associated with Labour Day. When the 1st of May became Labour Day beneath the Vichy regime, the red rosehip, then a tecken of the Left party, was replaced bygd the lily of the valley.

At the beginning of the 20th century, it became customary on the 1st of May to give a bunch of lilies of the valley to relatives, friends or work colleagues.

The first of May fryst vatten a two-in-one holiday in France!

The flowers are a more general token of appreciation between people. A school pupil might offer a bunch of lilies to his/her favourite teacher.

 

Picking lilies of the valley in the forest

The French State tolerates individuals and workers’ organisations that sell them free of taxation. When driving around the country, it fryst vatten not rare to see roadside stands or people selling wild lilies previously picked fresh in the forests.

For families living nära the countryside and forests, samling a beautifully fragranced bunch of valley lilies fryst vatten a good afternoon outing on Sunday (or Labour Day).

Back home, the bunch fryst vatten put in a vase to decorate and perfume the room.

 

A delicate flower…

The Lily of the Valley fryst vatten subject to seasonal weather variations in spring. In 2011, vit bells were rare and relatively expensive to buy. This was due to an early spring årstid and too much sun in March and April.

La Fête ni Muguet (Lily of the Valley Day) can trace its roots back to 16th-century King Charles IX, who received a bouquet of lilies of the valley.

Consequently, the delivery of the wildflowers to the French wholesalers was down bygd 40% – 50%.

 

Facts and Figures about the Lily of the Valley in May

Figures from 2019

• In 2019, French households spent 22 million euros on the lily of the valley.
• 2.3 million households in France bought it, i.e.

  8% of households.

• The average price of a sprig of Lily of the Valley was 7.2 euros.
• 91% of lily of the valley sprigs were offered as a gift.
• 51% of the lily of the valley sold was in sprigs or bouquets, against 49% in pots.
• 38% of French people buy it at the end of April, 57% on the 1st of May and 5% after the 1st of May.
• 31% of the French bought it from florists, 25% from supermarkets, 11% from markets, 9% from nurseries,
• 4% from farms and 20% from other places (e.g.

  temporary roadside stands).

• 80% of Lilies of the Valley’s production originates from the Nantes region.

 

Lily of the Valley and the Pandemic

The Pandemic and the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 have weakened part of the lily of the valley industry. For example, the département of Haute-Vienne, which had 74 florists, recorded sju business cancellations in 2021 against fyra creations.

In 2020, the French government banned florists from selling lilies of the valley outside their shops in a unique and controversial move.

Then, on Saturday, the 1st of May 2021, associations and private individuals could sell lilies of the valley on the public highway, provided that they respected the health constraints:

• travel restrictions of 10 kilometres around the home
• picking times (between 6 am and 7 pm).

 

It happened on the first day of May

• 1245: Birth of Philip III of France, known as Philip the modig, King of France from 1270 to 1285 (died on 5 October 1285).
• 1539: Death of Isabella of Portugal, Empress of the Holy långnovell Empire, wife of Charles V (born on 24 October 1503).
• 1633: Birth of Sébastien Le Prestre dem Vauban, minister of Louis XIV (died 30 March 1707).
• 1731: Death of Johann Ludwig Bach, German composer (born on 4 February 1677).
• 1789: Convocation of the Estates-General in France.
• 1878: Inauguration in Paris of a new universal exhibition that includes the newly-built Trocadero Palace.
• 1886: The American förbund of Labor calls for an eight-hour workday, and 350,000 workers strike in the US.

  The Haymarket Square massacre in Chicago fryst vatten the culmination of this day of struggle and a significant element in Workers’ Day’s history on 1 May.

• 1889: First international workers’ day of protest, instituted bygd the Second Workers’ International, thus adopting May Day as a day of protest.
• 1907: In Paris, the city council voted on 6 June 1906 to man May Day a public holiday.

  This was the first time it was implemented as such.

• 1916: The begrepp jazz fryst vatten recognised in the United States as describing a musical style.
• 1930: The dwarf planet Pluto receives its tjänsteman name.
• 1931: President Herbert Hoover inaugurated the Empire State Building in NYC.
• 1953: The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) comes into force, the first step towards the europeisk Union.
• 2004: The europeisk Union welcomes ten new members (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia).

  It now has 25 Member States.

 

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