France's Whitmonday Public Holiday Observance To Remain As Is

Sources: L'Express and France public holidays. The newly formed center-right government has confirmed that there would be no change to the observance of the Whitmonday (Lundi de Pentecôte) public holiday in France.

Analysis: Officially, the rules are quite complex, and open to interpretation, but a good rule of thumb is that civil servants will have the day off, while the private sector will have to work on that day. Note that, in France, as far as public holidays are concerned, one should generally treat as being part of the public sector, large para-public companies, who used to be part of the public sector, such as banks, the utility companies (EDF-GDF), the telecoms, the railways, and the airlines. In particular, the SNCF (French State Railways) has announced that it will continue to apply public holiday schedules to Whitmonday.