May Day

Today is May Day.

In memory of the deaths that occurred in Chicago on May 1st, 1886 during the demonstration demanding an eight-hour working day for all workers, today was adopted as Labor Day in 1889 at the Founding Convention of the Second International in Paris. In the years since then, this Labor Day has traditionally seen trade unions and other political organizations parade and demonstrate to protest various governments - and their policies - in many countries in Europe. During the Cold War, there used to be huge parades in the capital cities of Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe. Kremlinologists would attempt to decode changes in USSR leadership by studying the positions, appearances and disappearances of the individuals sitting and standing on the podium in Moscow's Red Square.

Times have changed, eh ?

What hasn't changed so much, however, is how one spends one's day in France. Thirty or forty years ago, there were huge political demonstrations while the country simply stopped functioning on May 1st. Nowadays, with rampant globalization – and fewer demos and less political involvement - not everything shuts down completely. Preparing for May 1st does take a bit of advance planning. Not as much as it used to, but some forethought is necessary.

First, think about food. This paid national holiday is one on which the vast majority of shops (more than 98%, according to government figures) remain closed by law. Shopping for food on the preceding day is always a must. Huge numbers of restaurants are just not open on May 1st. Entertainment ? Some cinemas and almost all museums are closed as well. Transport ? Significantly reduced trains and metros; quite a few gas stations are closed, too. This year the holiday falls on a Sunday, so the impact of the May 1st break in the working week is substantially reduced. This morning two of the three boulangeries in Amerloque's neighborhood are closed. The line at the third one stretches out the door and down the street - at 07h30. Amerloque will give up his Sunday croissant aux amandes, since ever the traditionalist, he must locate and purchase the best muguet he can.

The muguet ? That's the Lily of the Valley, in English. For centuries the Lily of the Valley has been a symbol of renewal and Spring. On May 1st, 1561 Charles IX began the tradition of offering a muguet for luck. In 1907 the muguet was first associated with Labor Day. In 1936, year of the Front Populaire, unlicensed street vendors began selling sprigs of muguet to passerby. Nowadays, postwar French tradition ordains that one must offer au moins un brin de muguet ("at least one sprig of Lily of the Valley") to the loved one on May Day.

French commercial law, usually very strict as to who can sell what, provides that absolutely anyone can sell muguet on the street on May Day, without a license, from sunup to sundown. However, this on-street muguet must absolutely be the wild variety, gathered in the woods and forests - and not greenhouse plants, which can themselves only be sold at florists' shops. This proviso of the law is probably more honored in the breach than in the observance, since last year at Rungis (the wholesale market for Paris and its region) 1,212,135 sprigs of Lily of the Valley were sold, down from 1,227,422 in the year 2003. Not all of these were resold by florists, that's for sure.

So, off early to find muguet. Meeting the vendors, smelling the fragrance, checking for wild muguet and not the hothouse variety (wild muguet is darker green, hothouse muguet is lighter green and has larger white cloches), negotiating the price: those are the important parts of French May Day, for Amerloque. At Rungis the price this year is between 15 and 20 euros for 50 sprigs. He hears that the going rate on the street will be un euro le brin, at least in the morning (late afternoon prices will be lower).

That's quite reasonable - and a price Amerloque will cheerfully pay, for tradition.


L'Amerloque

Text © Copyright 2005 by L'Amerloque