{"id":12708,"date":"2026-05-07T21:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/12708\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T21:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:32:13","slug":"an-american-in-paris-explains-european-bridge-holidays-and-people-are-fascinated-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/12708\/","title":{"rendered":"An American in Paris explains European ‘bridge holidays’ and people are fascinated"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no secret that work culture<\/a> in Europe is a lot different from what it is in the United States. Europeans often get more time off and work fewer hours<\/a> overall. Even so, you have to really live there<\/a> to understand just how different things are.<\/p>\n

Justyn Lee is doing exactly that. He is an American<\/a> living and working in Paris, and even he was surprised after moving there to discover a few new things about the work culture. One major takeaway? In France, the month of May barely exists.<\/p>\n

American living in Paris explains \u201cle pont\u201d<\/p>\n

In a LinkedIn post<\/a>, Lee explains that France has four official holidays in the month of May. That\u2019s kind of a lot, but not totally unusual compared to what Americans are used to. In November, we have Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, while in January there\u2019s New Year\u2019s Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In France, there\u2019s Labour Day, Victory in Europe Day, Ascension Thursday, and Whit Monday.<\/p>\n

However, he notes that \u201cFrance does not operate on days. It operates on proximity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee then explains something called \u201cle pont,\u201d which means \u201cthe bridge.\u201d Whenever a holiday, or a day off from work, lands in the middle of the week, most companies just go ahead and make \u201cthe days in between disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Americans are familiar with \u201cthe bridge\u201d in a few scenarios. Most businesses are closed the Friday after Thanksgiving, for example. But in France, while it\u2019s not legally mandated, it\u2019s culturally accepted that most holidays turn into a four-day weekend.<\/p>\n

Lee says people take this opportunity to travel, go on vacation, or rest, only occasionally checking in on work. \u201cLet\u2019s circle back in June\u201d is a common refrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay is not a month,\u201d he writes. \u201cC\u2019est la vie.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just France that likes to stretch its holiday weekends<\/p>\n

The concept of \u201cbridge holidays\u201d is almost universal across European and Latin American work cultures. It exists under different names in France, Germany (Br\u00fcckentage), Spain (hacer puente), Brazil (imprensar\/emendar\/enforcar), and more.<\/p>\n

There are tons of reasons<\/a> for this extremely liberal vacation policy. European and Latin American countries have strong labor unions that protect workers\u2019 rights, and most have universal healthcare, which lowers the economic pressures associated with working.<\/p>\n

Though bridge holidays and large amounts of paid time off are not completely universal, the U.S. does seem to be in the minority by not participating.<\/p>\n

How do countries like France keep the \u201ctrains running,\u201d so to speak, in the month of May and other months full of holidays? Essential services are often still open, as are shops and small businesses in big cities like Paris. Tourism workers may not get such an extended break at the same time, since everyone is vacationing. But otherwise, typical office workers have a cultural agreement that non-urgent emails and meetings can simply\u2026wait.<\/p>\n

Europeans chime in with a knowing nod<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s post struck a chord on LinkedIn, where dozens of commenters were eager to share their thoughts.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove this post!\u201d Marta Pastoriza Ares commented. \u201cHaha Something veeery similar happens in Spain as well, and we also call it \u2018hacer puente\u2019 (bridging those bank holidays with the days \u2018in between\u2019). A culture trait I refuse to leave behind. Not ever!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery similar approach in Brazil when it comes to holidays,\u201d Carolina O. Fraiel said. \u201cWe call it \u2018imprensar\u2019 (to squeeze), \u2019emendar\u2019 (to connect) and \u2018enforcar\u2019 (to choke). And all it means is that people hope for holidays on Tuesdays and Thursdays to make the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery, very similar in Germany, we even also call those days between holidays and weekends \u2018Br\u00fcckentage\u2019 (bridge days),\u201d Alexander Lichanow said. \u201cI would love to see US hustlebros froth and fume over this blatant disregard for grind culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shahana Shaikh was fascinated by the unwritten rules in action: \u201cInteresting how work culture isn\u2019t just rules it\u2019s the unwritten norms people quietly follow. Sometimes, without anything being formally announced, everyone just aligns around a shared rhythm. It shows that culture isn\u2019t what\u2019s written in policy, but what people actually practice every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

And finally, Tim McNerney drew a humorous parallel to life in the U.S.: \u201cEuropean AE: Right guys, it\u2019s July 31st. I\u2019ll see you in September. Out of office is on. Leaving my work laptop at home. Don\u2019t try and contact me. American AE: kidney surgery is tomorrow. Bring the docusigns by my bed, and I\u2019ll make sure we get the red lines covered before they put me under. I should be good for the on-site the next morning too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Americans in the comments were a bit flabbergasted to learn the meaning behind \u201cle pont.\u201d But would bridge holidays even work in America?<\/p>\n

Without federally mandated paid time off and some major changes to the cultural infrastructure, probably not. Americans also tend to get higher salaries than their European counterparts, and they like it that way.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not to say that it\u2019s all doom and gloom for overworked Americans.<\/p>\n

After COVID-19 and the work-from-home boom, many workers have found themselves with more flexibility than their office jobs previously allowed. In addition to formal \u201cbridges\u201d around Thanksgiving and Christmas, it\u2019s become more normal for workplaces to be \u201cquiet\u201d around the holidays or during certain stretches of the summer.<\/p>\n

This understanding could become even more normalized in the coming years.<\/p>\n

The key thing that makes it work in France, though, is the social contract. There\u2019s an unspoken agreement that life is more important than work, and things that aren\u2019t urgent are sometimes going to have to wait. It\u2019s an approach that we could, and probably should, adopt a little more of here at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s no secret that work culture in Europe is a lot different from what it is in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3445,73,5,9511,30,7085],"class_list":{"0":"post-12708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-paris","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-holiday","12":"tag-paris","13":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}