In August, the typically bustling Saturday morning market across from the Paris Museum of Modern Art is a whisper of itself. Gone are the flower stalls, the fishmongers, the line for hot crepes. The cheese vendors have disappeared, except one run by Philippe Perette.
“This is Paris in August,” he says, cutting a piece of vieux Comté. “It’s not normal Paris.”
Normal Paris is crowded, haughty, frenetic. It’s a place where people jockey for space, on the subways, in the streets and in the cafes that spill across the sidewalks.
Paris in August, except for the tourist traps, is a whole other place. Its streets are deserted — decluttered of terrace chairs and charging commuters. Its subway cars, normally standing-room only, offer places to sit. Many of its storefronts are closed, with notices taped to their dark windows or metal shutters.
“Closed for vacation, opening Aug. 31, 2025. Thanks,” reads the handwritten note affixed to a newspaper kiosk.
A note on a pharmacy announces that it is closed for three weeks in August and tells customers to “plan ahead for your medical and health product needs.”
The city feels as though it has been tipped over and shaken — hundreds of thousands of its residents spilling out toward “les grandes vacances,” or “the big vacation,” meaning the summer break. The butchers and bankers, barbers and bookkeepers have almost all gone. Two leading newspapers air reruns of their daily podcasts for the month.
An email from the Foreign Ministry’s press office sent out July 17 announces that the office will be closed until September. “In the meantime,” it states, “we wish you a pleasant vacation.”
Because of course, you, too, will be leaving Paris. Like Ramadan in Senegal, or Christmas in North America, vacationing in August is a culturally entrenched norm. It is so ingrained that by mid-July “Have a good vacation” replaces “Goodbye” in conversations.
“If we stayed, we would simply watch our flowers die,” said Lena Core, who was cleaning up a stand in July outside the plant store where she works. The shop has since closed and she is hiking in Scotland. “The area is totally dead,” she added. “You must leave, too.”
It’s not just Paris. Most of France takes vacation in August, except for workers in the tourism sector. Vacations have been stitched into French identity since 1936, when the short-lived Socialist government of Léon Blum introduced two weeks of paid holidays. To help the population learn the art of vacationing, he named the country’s first minister of sports and leisure, who offered discounted train tickets and subsidized guesthouses around the country.
Since then, the country’s muscular labor unions have repeatedly and successfully pushed to expand those weeks to five and to institute a 35-hour workweek law that translates to overtime paid in extra days off for many workers. That’s on top of 11 public holidays.
Here, vacations were so important that the government subsidized holiday camps where factory workers could get their fill of French culture, attending classical music performances and art shows, said Bertrand Réau, author of the book “The French and Vacations.” Still today, the state helps subsidize vacations for low-income families, and big businesses often offer holiday discount vouchers to their employees.
An Ipsos vacation poll of 23 countries taken over the winter showed that 82 percent of those surveyed in France intended to take a vacation in the summer — mostly to a French beach.
The herd mentality protects the ritual, said Laetitia Vitaud, a researcher who studies work trends.
“People rest better when they rest together,” she said (from Normandy, where she was on vacation). “Real work disconnection becomes possible because everyone does it at the same time.”
But what about the forgotten few left behind?
“I was sad the first year I was here and not on vacation, but now I appreciate it,” said Tanguy Azéma, a repairman for a bike rental company who was taking a break by the Seine among a clump of empty lounge chairs. Across the river, a gold weather vane gleamed from atop one of the Conciergerie’s ancient turrets. The view was unfettered by people or boats.
“I have the feeling in August that the city is reserved just for me,” he said.
Many locals revel in the un-Paris-like atmosphere. You can coast on your bike, unassaulted by frenzied traffic, they note. Museums — at least those not included on tourist must-see lists — are close to empty: no neck craning or lining-up necessary.
“Can you believe I drove to the Seine and found a parking spot near the Eiffel Tower?” said Kim Hoang, a chiropractor. The traffic was so thin, he added, he arrived early to meet his out-of-town relatives for a boat tour. “It’s the best time of the year,” he said.
Even if not on vacation, Parisians left in the city go into a power-saving mode. They often start work late and close up shop early. They saunter, unrushed.
“We can talk in peace,” said Emmanuel Delort from behind the counter of his small wine store near the usually thronging Beauvau market. “We can joke around a bit.”
When a woman arrived looking for some rum for a friend’s birthday, Mr. Delort offered long, colorful descriptions stirring in the distillery’s history, its aging process, the notes of flambéed banana or pepper, and advice on how it is best consumed (after airing for 30 minutes, “so it’s warm but not burning,” he noted).
He is a talker, he admits. But he rarely has this kind of open runway. “This is nice. You can meet a lot of people. It’s enriching,” he said.
But it’s temporary, of course.
After August comes September, which in France is known as “la rentrée,” or “the re-entry,” a rush back to school, to work, to politics, to protests, to jammed subways and to crowded bike lanes. Because so many take time off in August, the return feels like a collective new beginning. Ms. Vitaud, the researcher, calls it “the price to pay for this cherished yearly reprieve.”
Sitting in Parc Monceau on a recent sunny afternoon, as her children played on an empty stretch of grass, Marie-Amélie Fenoll said that August was a reminder of Paris’s joys and beauties. She was even debating taking her children up the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
“It’s good to be calm in Paris,” she said, “before it returns to stressful Paris, full of noise and people.”
Catherine Porter is an international reporter for The Times, covering France. She is based in Paris.
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