2023-05-01 07:02:36
This Monday, May 1, 2023 is, like every May 1 since 1948, a public holiday. It is indeed Labor Day. In France, it merges with the International Workers’ Day. But contrary to what one might think, the origin of this holiday is not French, but American, and dates back to May 1, 1884, as indicated by the Ministry of Labour, Full Employment and Integration.
From the United States to Europe
On that day, the American workers’ unions had entered into demand in order to obtain the eight-hour day. They had chosen May 1, because this date then corresponded to the first day of the companies’ accounting year. Finally, on May 1, 1886, 200,000 American workers had obtained the eight-hour day, but not the others, leading to great mobilizations all over the country and violent clashes in Chicago. Three workers were killed on May 3 and a bomb thrown the next day at the police killed 15 people.
After these events, the idea of an annual day of protest also appeared in Europe, and validated during the Congress of the Second Socialist International in 1889, in Paris. The first of May took place in 1890 in France, with the demand, again, for the eight-hour day, symbolized by the wearing of a red triangle in the buttonhole. As in the United States, violence sometimes took place during these days, as in Fourmies (Nord) in 1891, or in Paris in 1906. A Ministry of Labor was created in October 1906 and the eight-hour day was obtained in France in 1919.
Labor Day today
During the Occupation, the Vichy government then tried to recover May 1, by transforming it into “Labor and Social Concord Day”, a day off without a reduction in salary from 1942. This date would also have been chosen because it is Saint-Philippe, the first name of Marshal Philippe Pétain. At the Liberation, the government officially recognized the character of May Day as a holiday on April 26, 1946. It became a public holiday and a holiday in 1948.
Today, some demonstrators have swapped the red triangle for the traditional lily of the valley, specifies Geo. Labor Day is celebrated all over the world, such as in Japan, South Africa and South America. It is a public holiday in all Western European countries, with the exception of Switzerland and the Netherlands. The United Kingdom chose the first Monday in May, and the United States and Canada the first Monday in September.
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