Bunnies, bells and fish! FRANCE 24's Genie Godula and Solange Mougin take a look at how France celebrates Easter Monday and April 1. We dive into the origin stories of these traditions, which won't fall on the same day again until 2086. We also discover why April Fools' Day is called "Poisson d'avril" in French.
This Entre Nous aired on Paris Direct, April 1, 2024. A programme produced by Amanda Alexander, Marina Pajovic and Georgina Robertson.
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This Entre Nous aired on Paris Direct, April 1, 2024. A programme produced by Amanda Alexander, Marina Pajovic and Georgina Robertson.
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
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NewsTranscript
00:00 And today is both April Fool's Day and Easter Monday.
00:03 So Solange Magin is with us now on set to walk us through how these two traditions are celebrated here in France.
00:09 And actually Solange, these two dates coinciding is actually quite rare.
00:12 Yeah, it's only the seventh time since 1900 that these two traditions fall on the same Monday,
00:18 as the date of Easter is often chosen, is chosen depending on the full moon.
00:22 And this national holiday, or le Lundi de Pâques as it's called in French,
00:26 won't be on April Fool's Day again until 2086.
00:30 So I'm going to take advantage of the good timing and walk us through how fish, bunnies, and bells
00:36 have everything to do with these holidays in France.
00:39 Here kids wake up on Easter wondering if les cloches sont passées, or if the bells have come,
00:45 bringing chocolates for them. Now why bells?
00:47 Well, traditionally, France's church bells, they would stop ringing between Good Friday and Easter
00:52 to get, for the bells to be blessed in Rome by the Pope. So upon their return of sorts,
00:58 children would say that the bells had come bearing gifts for them for the Holy Day.
01:03 Actually, the French had eight days off for the holiday until Napoleon in 1802 changed that to just one day off.
01:12 Oh, Napoleon.
01:13 I know, Napoleon.
01:14 Nowadays though, the Easter bunny increasingly has his place in supermarkets in France,
01:20 in the aisles of the 15,000 tons of chocolate that are sold for Easter.
01:25 You're likely to find more bunnies and eggs than bell-shaped chocolates now.
01:30 Okay, so that's for Easter. Let's move on now to April Fool's Day.
01:34 How is that celebrated in France? Is it celebrated in France?
01:36 Well, it's not called that. It's not called April Fool's Day.
01:40 But like the ancient Greeks and Romans who paid tribute to laughter gods in the spring,
01:45 in France there is a tradition of hoaxes, or les canulars as we say in French.
01:50 And thanks to the INA archives, we found some fun ones,
01:53 these made-up stories that once really pulled the legs of spectators.
01:57 There's oil beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
02:03 It seems unbelievable, but we're digging in the heart of Paris at Place de l'Etoile to find oil.
02:08 Until now, champagne's been this.
02:11 But soon it will be this.
02:14 This gesture, you'll no longer be able to do it freely.
02:19 The smoking ban is in all professional spaces with more than four people.
02:23 Now, as we just saw with the 1972 smoking ban story, some of them actually do come true.
02:31 Like, for example, another one, special lanes for bicycles and public transport,
02:37 things that were once out of this world on television that are pretty normal now.
02:42 I don't think we're anywhere near those seeing champagne in a pop-top.
02:45 No, we're not there yet.
02:46 Not quite yet.
02:47 All right, let's talk about fish.
02:48 So in France, like in other countries like Belgium or Italy or Switzerland,
02:51 fish actually play a very significant role on April 1st.
02:55 They do.
02:55 In France, April Fool's Day is actually called Poisson d'Avril,
02:58 which literally translates to April Fish.
03:02 And as a joke, children and sometimes adults,
03:04 they pin a paper fish on the back of an unbeknownst victim,
03:07 who then walks around all day with a fish on their back.
03:10 These kids always tell the truest truth of flipping situations on their head.
03:19 We stuck the fish on the teacher's backs.
03:23 Now, where did this tradition come from?
03:27 Well, there are a number of competing theories.
03:30 First, it's important to note that fish are historically a sign of fertility,
03:35 the sacred and spring.
03:37 There's the possibility that April 1st marked the start of the fishing season at some point.
03:42 Then there's the calendar theory.
03:44 In the Middle Ages, April 1st was actually the culmination of New Year's Eve celebrations,
03:49 as the end of March was the end of the year in the Julian calendar.
03:52 It was a time when people would give gifts to one another.
03:55 But then in 1564, King Charles IX, he changed it to the Gregorian calendar,
04:00 the one that we have today.
04:01 And the theory goes that people kept giving gifts like they used to.
04:06 They would be made fools of so they would switch to the newer calendar.
04:09 And this morphed into the fake fish.
04:12 Who knows if this is true?
04:13 But all the same, the Poisson d'Avril is a moment to joke around.
04:17 And to use a Franglish, a French-English joke that we use in my family,
04:21 we "s'en fiche du reste," "s'en fiche du reste,"
04:25 or we forget about all the rest on April Fool's Day.
04:29 Jeannie, I have some treats for you.
04:31 Oh, fish!
04:31 I have some fish that we can play around with in the studio afterwards.
04:34 As long as you don't stick it on my back.
04:36 Well, I think our executive producer has already beat me to it.
04:40 No!
04:40 Turn around! There we go!
04:42 You got me!
04:44 Happy April Fool's Day.
04:46 Thank you so much, Solange.
04:47 Oh, they got me, they got me.
04:49 It's not just my kids that get me.
04:50 All right, Solange, thank you so much for that.
04:51 Solange Marjean with that look at Easter Monday or April Fool's Day here in France.