French Bridge Days 2027: Calendar and Dates to Block

The 2027 public holidays calendar, day by day

France has eleven public holidays in mainland France. Seven of them fall on weekdays, which leaves room for a bridge. The table shows, for each one, whether a bridge is possible and how many days to take. 26 December is a public holiday in Alsace-Moselle, but it falls on a Sunday in 2027, so it adds no day off. Good Friday (26 March) follows a local rule, covered further down.

Source: service-public.gouv.fr, fact sheet F2405 for the holiday list (in French), and weekdays calculated from Easter (Sunday 28 March 2027), checked on 15 October 2026.

The calculation starts from Easter. Ascension falls 39 days after Easter, Whit Monday 50 days after. That fixes Thursday 6 May and Monday 17 May, two dates you have to recalculate each year rather than memorise.

For comparison, England and Wales has eight bank holidays in 2027 (Scotland and Northern Ireland have different lists). The Early May, Spring and Summer bank holidays fall on Monday 3 May, Monday 31 May and Monday 30 August. Because they are all Mondays, they create three-day weekends with nothing to book. France works differently: its holidays sit on fixed dates, so the bridge days depend on the weekday each holiday lands on.

The 2027 bridges: days to take and days off gained

A bridge stretches a public holiday that falls midweek onto a weekend. So the number that matters isn’t how many holidays there are, but the ratio of days taken to days off gained. Three bridges cost just one day of leave. The simplest one is still Ascension.

Ascension: four days off for one day of leave

Thursday 6 May 2027, public holiday Bridge: Friday 7 May 4 days off

Thursday 6 May is a public holiday. You take Friday 7 May and carry on through to Sunday 9 May: four days off for one day of leave. Some guides suggest « take 3 to 6 May ». That doesn’t hold up, because 6 May is already a holiday. The bridge is on 7 May, and nowhere else.

On the school side, Friday 7 May is a school-free day for pupils in zones A, B and C, according to the official school calendar on data.education.gouv.fr. Ascension is therefore the easiest bridge to arrange for a family.

• Take one day: Friday 7 May 2027.
• Get four days off, from Thursday 6 to Sunday 9 May.
• For pupils: no school on Friday 7 May in zones A, B and C.

Pixidia tip: ask your employer early. A bridge is negotiated with your employer, not claimed (see the section on the right to a bridge further down).

If you take Friday 7 May off, a day trip from Paris can fill the day. Yet the Viator schedule checked on 15 October 2026 marks 7 May 2027 as SOLD_OUT on every departure time, for both options: no departure is open for booking that day as of that check. The listing describes a 14-hour day starting from place du Général Kœnig in Paris’s 17th arrondissement, with an English-speaking guide. Check the date on the listing before you block your day.

Mont Saint Michel Day Trip from Paris with English Speaking Guide €119 per adult (15 and over) without abbey entry, €139 with entry · recommended public price checked on 15 October 2026 for the May 2027 season · ★ 4.4 (963 Viator reviews, checked on 15 October 2026)

View the listing and dates

For bridges of more than two days, the method is the same as for the May 2026 bridges, covered in the May 2026 bank holidays guide. The 2027 calendar changes the dates, not the logic.

14 July: five or nine days off, but in the middle of the school summer holidays

Wednesday 14 July gives you two options with two days of leave. Take Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 July, and you string together Saturday 10 to Wednesday 14: five days off. Or take Thursday 15 and Friday 16 July, and you enjoy Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18. With four days of leave, from 12 to 16 July, you reach nine days off in a row, from Saturday 10 to Sunday 18.

The catch is well known: pupils are on summer holiday. The school year ends after class on Friday 2 July, and the holidays start on Saturday 3 July, according to vacances-scolaires-education.fr. This bridge is mostly worth it for working adults without school-age children, or for families already on leave. For a Paris plan around that date, the Bastille Day 2026 programme in Paris gives a concrete reference.

Pixidia tip: if you’re aiming for nine days, put the four days in a single leave request, not two.

The table below sums up the ten bridge options of the year. Days off are recalculated for each one, and common mistakes are flagged in the last column.

Source: calculation of 2027 weekdays (Easter on 28 March), cross-checked with faire-le-pont.fr, checked on 15 October 2026.

1 January and Whit Monday (if you take no leave) each form a three-day weekend that needs no leave. For 1 May and 8 May, which fall on a Saturday, no bridge is possible in the strict sense. So there are just three one-day bridges, one two-day bridge worth the trouble on 14 July, and a Whit Monday that has to be negotiated.

School holidays 2027: the dates to check against the bridges

Holiday dates often decide which bridge to pick, and they vary by academic zone. The table gives the 2027 winter and spring holidays, as published by sites that quote the official orders. To check your school’s dates, the official calendar of your academy is the reference.

Source: vacances-scolaires-education.fr, 2027 calendar to print, checked on 15 October 2026.

How to read it for a bridge: in zone B, pupils go back on Monday 3 May, three days before Thursday 6 May, so the Ascension bridge falls outside the holidays. In zones A and C, school restarts well before 6 May. In all three zones, Friday 7 May stays a school-free day, according to the official school calendar. For the other two bridges: Tuesday 30 March (Easter bridge), pupils are in class in all three zones, since the spring holidays start at the earliest on Saturday 3 April (zone C). Thursday 13 and Friday 14 May (Whit Monday), pupils are in class in all three zones, since the spring holidays in every zone have ended by Monday 3 May. This is a reading of the school calendar, not an official bridge date.

All Saints’ 2027: from Saturday 23 October to Monday 8 November, in all zones. Monday 1 November therefore has no point as a bridge. For the autumn period, the All Saints’ 2026 bridge and its European destinations shows how a long weekend gets planned, even though the 2027 period leaves no day to take.

Christmas 2027: from Saturday 18 December 2027 to Monday 3 January 2028, all zones. 25 December falls on a Saturday, with no compensating day off. For this period, booking matters more than the bridge.

Back to school 2027: teachers’ training day on Wednesday 1 September, pupils return on Thursday 2 September, according to the order published in the Journal officiel (the French official gazette) on 23 July 2026 and relayed by vacances-scolaires.com.

2028 calendar, already published: winter 2028 starts in zone B on Saturday 5 February, then in zone C on Saturday 12 February and in zone A on Saturday 19 February. The rotation changes from one year to the next, so check the table again every year.

The dates to block in your 2027 calendar

The list below is for deciding, not for filling a diary. It starts from each bridge’s payoff and from the school constraints.

1. Ascension, Thursday 6 to Sunday 9 May. One day to take (Friday 7 May), four days off. No school for pupils in zones A, B and C.
2. Spring holidays, 3 April to 3 May depending on the zone. Zone C 3 to 19 April, zone A 10 to 26 April, zone B 17 April to 3 May. Block your zone’s dates before looking for a bridge.
3. 14 July, Saturday 10 to Sunday 18 July. Nine days off with four days of leave, but pupils are on summer holiday: the point is for working adults without school-age children.
4. Armistice Day, Thursday 11 to Sunday 14 November. One-day bridge: Friday 12 November. Pupils have school that day, so you’ll need to take the day off or arrange childcare.
5. All Saints’ holidays, Saturday 23 October to Monday 8 November. Autumn holidays in all zones. The period is already covered, so there is nothing to take.
6. Christmas, Saturday 18 December 2027 to Monday 3 January 2028. Holidays in all zones. 25 December falls on a Saturday, with no compensating day off.

For 2027, no SNCF sales opening date is confirmed as of writing. The most in-demand bridges, Ascension and 14 July, are worth watching on the SNCF website rather than waiting for a date that’s only assumed.

Bridges, leave and your employer: what the rule says

A bridge is not a right. According to service-public.gouv.fr, an employer can grant a bridge to employees but isn’t obliged to. Collective agreements (company, establishment, then sector) set which public holidays are off first. Failing that, the decision rests with the employer (service-public.gouv.fr, fact sheet F2405). For the bridge itself, the source is service-public.gouv.fr, news item A19019, updated 21 September 2026.

A public holiday that falls on a weekend gives no legal right to a compensatory day off. Collective agreements can provide more. In 2027 this concerns four days: 1 May, 8 May, 15 August and 25 December (service-public.gouv.fr, fact sheet F2405).

1 May remains the only public holiday that is compulsorily off for all employees. Working that day gives the right to double pay, except in businesses whose activity can’t be interrupted. Employees with at least three months’ service can’t lose pay because of a public holiday that is off, apart from special cases (home workers, intermittent and temporary staff), according to fact sheet F2405.

When an employer grants a bridge, the rules for counting leave (paid leave, RTT days off for working-time reduction, consultation of the works council, or CSE) depend on the company. Check the collective agreement or the internal rules before you book the leave. We could not read the reference text on this specific point, so we don’t assert it here.

Two points come up often in coverage of the subject. An employer can refuse a leave request, notably because of a risk of understaffing. Refusing to work a public holiday that isn’t off counts as an unjustified absence, with a deduction from pay and possible sanctions (Consoglobe and CFDT, consulted on 15 October 2026; we could only read extracts of those pages).

Solidarity Day: Whit Monday as the default date

Whit Monday, 17 May 2027, is the default date for the solidarity day (journée de solidarité). A company agreement, then a sector agreement, or failing that the employer’s decision after consulting the CSE, can set another date. The day represents seven hours for a full-time employee, with no extra pay, according to tpeactu.fr, published 17 September 2026.

Alsace-Moselle, Corsica and overseas: the special cases

Alsace-Moselle. Local law adds days off. 26 December is a public holiday there, but it falls on a Sunday in 2027. Good Friday, 26 March 2027, is a public holiday only in municipalities with a Protestant temple or a joint church. As far as we know, there is no official 2027 list of these municipalities: check with your town hall or the prefecture.

Corsica. Specialist sites don’t give the same winter and spring holiday dates for Corsica. This article therefore doesn’t give an end-of-term date or an Ascension bridge for Corsica until they’re confirmed. Before you block a week, check with the Corsican rectorate. According to vacances-scolaires.com, the All Saints’ holidays are the same as on the mainland.

Public holidays and holidays specific to the overseas departments and regions are not detailed in this article: check with the rectorate of the relevant academy.

What other guides don’t tell you

Several 2027 bridge guides repeat mistakes or give incomplete rules. Here are five points we’ve checked, the last one also relying on faire-le-pont.fr (an unofficial source), as of 15 October 2026.

• Ascension is taken on Friday 7 May, not « 3 to 6 May ». Thursday 6 May is already a public holiday. The correct count gives four days off, from 6 to 9 May, based on the 2027 calendar and the official holiday list (service-public.gouv.fr, F2405, consulted 15 October 2026).
• A bridge is not a right. Your employer can grant one but isn’t obliged to (service-public.gouv.fr, A19019, updated 21 September 2026, consulted 15 October 2026).
• Good Friday isn’t a public holiday everywhere in Alsace-Moselle. It only is in municipalities with a Protestant temple or a joint church (service-public.gouv.fr, F2405, consulted 15 October 2026).
• Epiphany isn’t a public holiday in mainland France. 6 January 2027 is a Wednesday: it creates no bridge, even though some guides list it among the bridges (service-public.gouv.fr, F2405, list of the 11 public holidays, consulted 15 October 2026).
• All eleven public holidays remain in force for 2027. The bill to scrap two public holidays, debated in 2025, was withdrawn. The 2027 finance bill is under discussion, and no new law changes the framework as of the date consulted (faire-le-pont.fr, 4 September 2026, and service-public.gouv.fr, F2405, consulted 15 October 2026).

Practical steps to plan your 2027 bridges

Before you request leave, a few steps avoid nasty surprises:

• Ask your employer, in the autumn, which bridges they’ll grant for 2027, especially for Ascension and 14 July.
• Check your academy’s zone (A, B or C) and the matching holiday dates. For Corsica and the overseas departments, go through the rectorate.
• Read the collective agreement on public holidays worked and on the solidarity day.
• Watch transport sales rather than assuming an opening date. For 2027, none is confirmed as of writing.

The May 2026 bank holiday hack sets out a method for building a long break around a bridge, and the European getaways for the 8 May 2026 bridge offer ideas for four-day trips.