La Toussaint

La Toussaint, known as All Saint’s Day in English, is a public holiday in France. Celebrated on 1st November, families get together on this day to commemorate the dead, often by paying visits to the resting places of loved ones and attending a special Mass known as La Messe de la Toussaint.

Traditionally, the commemoration of the dead occurred not on La Toussaint but on La Commémoration Des Fidèles Défunts - All Souls' Day in English - which occurs the day after La Toussaint, namely 2nd November. While All Saints' Day was originally reserved for saints and martyrs in the Catholic Church, All Souls' Day is, well, for all souls.

As this day isn't recognised as a public holiday, however - meaning people don't automatically get the day off work - it's more common for families to commemorate the dead on La Toussaint.

The origins of La Toussaint are ancient and, as a result, shrouded in mystery. Some think they can be traced back to Lemuria, a Roman pagan festival which celebrated the dead and, crucially, was held in mid-May.

Now, of course, La Toussaint is celebrated on 1st November, a full six months after May. But it was originally celebrated on 13 May, when in 610 Pope Boniface IV introduced a day for the celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Christian martyrs. About a hundred years later, in the mid-700s, Pope Gregory VII changed the date of the commemoration to 1st November.

Why 1st November? Supposedly, that was the date when Gregory dedicated an oratory to the relics 'of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors.' But it’s also possible that the Church was influenced by the Celtic tradition of Halloween (or Samhain), which occurred the day before, on 31 October, and sought to maintain local customs by confining the celebration to the same time of the year. According to Celtic tradition, the end of October was significant as it marked the halfway point between the September equinox and the December solstice, a point at which it was believed that the border separating the living and the dead was not quite as solid as usual...

The extent to which Samhain influenced Halloween, let alone All Saints' Day, is hotly debated even today. Unlike its Celtic predecessor, however, All Saints' Day went on to be celebrated all around the world, and today it is a public holiday in not just France but also Austria, Spain, the Philippines, Chile and many other countries besides.

During the French Revolution, many religious holidays were abolished as the new regime attempted to secularise the calendar and society itself. La Toussaint was one of the casualties, along with Pentecost, the saints' feast days and even Christmas.

This didn't go down well with the Church. In 1801, reconciliation was attempted in the form of a Concordat between France and the Vatican. This affirmed the Pope's right to depose bishops, an acknowledgement that Catholicism was the de facto religion of France and the restoration of several feast days, including the Assumption, Ascension Day, Easter - and La Toussaint.

Ever since then, most French workers have enjoyed a day off on La Toussaint. As with other public holidays, the exception is when the holiday falls on a weekend. Since most people aren't working on Saturday or Sunday typically, they unfortunately don't get an extra day off!

Toussaint is an abbreviation of Tous Les Saints, meaning ‘All Saints’.

Halloween, which falls on 31st October, is not traditionally celebrated in France. That said, it is becoming increasingly popular to celebrate Halloween, largely as a result of the influence of American culture and media. Cinemas will often show horror movies, spooky decorations can be spotted in shops and houses, and kids may even go trick-or-treating.

For many, the Halloween celebrations are simply subsumed into the celebrations for La Toussaint, since both share a theme of commemorating the date and are only a day apart from one another. La Toussaint remains the more popular of the two in France, however.