How to celebrate birthdays in France

Birthdays are special in France, and people choose to celebrate them in a variety of ways. Children will often hold birthday parties, where they invite friends to their house to celebrate with fun games and sweet treats, normally during the afternoon. Parents usually aren’t expected to stay, and will typically drop their children off and come back to pick them up.

Adults will often have birthday parties too. These tend to take the form of dinner parties, in which wine and charcuterie are common items of the evening meal.

Cakes are, of course, a commonplace. In France, there are many different types of cake eaten on a birthday, such as Opéra (a layered almond sponge cake coated in coffee liqueur), Bavarois (a kind of mousse cake) or a simple Gȃteau au chocolat. Certain types of cake are also more likely to be eaten in certain regions. In Alsace, for example, the Kougelhopf (a kind of traditional German Bundt cake) is a common site at a dinner party, while in Brittany you’re more likely to find yourself tucking into a Far Breton, a baked custard dish filled with prunes. According to local tradition, anyone who finds a prune stone in their slice is destined to receive years of good luck!

In areas of Provence there is also a tradition known as the Couronnée d’Étoiles. This is a crown of lit candles worn by the person whose birthday it is - typically one for each year of their life, meaning this tradition gets slightly hazardous for older celebrants! Friends and family take turns to light the candles while singing birthday songs, so it’s best to save the wine-drinking until after this part of the celebration!

Coco Chanel - 19 August, 1883

Marion Cotillard - 30 September, 1975

Marie-Antoinette - 2 November 1755

Simone de Beauvoir - 9 January, 1908

Jean-Paul Sartre - 21 June, 1905

Victor Hugo - 26 February 1802

Marie Curie - 7 November 1867

un anniversaire - birthday

Joyeux anniversaire - happy birthday

un cadeau - present

une fête d’anniversaire - birthday party

une bougie - candle

un gȃteau - cake

une carte d’anniversaire - birthday card