We All Need a French Sunday

I don’t know about you, but I need to squeeze every drop out of every day of my week. Why? Because being an adult is a full-time job, on top of my full-time job. The house needs cleaning. Groceries need prepping. Laundry must be folded. The brokerage account needs a review. The idea of taking an entire day and noodling it away? Preposterous. Blasphemy. Downright impossible—or so I say. However, the concept of the “French Sunday” has been making rounds on the internet…and as a former Paris resident, I have to say, it has merit.

The hosts of the Mamamia Out Loud podcast recently discussed the practice in their January 15 episode, “We’ve Entered the Year of Friction-maxxing.” During the conversation, Emily Vernem declared that “we’ve been doing Sundays wrong. The French have been doing it right.” The crew pulled the idea from The Zoe Report, with Vernem continuing: “It’s the idea that Sundays are meant to be lazy, stress-free, filled with doing nothing.” This can be seen as an evolution from the country’s Catholic roots and observance of the Sabbath, the Christian concept of the “day of rest.” Sounds nice.

As an American who lived in France, I can attest that the French Sunday is indeed a phenomenon (though less intense in bigger cities). The first weekend I spent in France, I panicked as I realized I needed groceries now, and everything was…closed. Granted, my French friends have complained that over the years, France has adopted more of the American mindset, but a good number of businesses still shut their doors on Sunday or have reduced hours. And after struggling through that cadence for a year and half, I conceded that they’re on to something.

It stems not, however, from this coined “French Sunday” concept but the general attitude the French have toward work. As in, there’s no urgency. No urgency to be anywhere or get anything done. Don’t get me wrong—all the French people I know are incredibly hard workers, but they have boundaries. One business executive I know takes eight weeks off per year. The entire country shuts down in August. (To the chagrin of their American counterparts.) I think their attitude toward work is best summed up by one of my friends, who told me, “I get to the office at 10. We have coffee and talk for half an hour. I go to my desk. Lunch is at 1. It’s a two-hour lunch. I go back to work. I take a coffee break at 4. I go home at five.” When I tallied up all her hours, I think I counted…five.

On the flip side, Americans buy into the mentality that “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” That idea traps us into constantly working. So, it’s no wonder that we’re trying to squeeze every last precious drop out of our weekend and are feeling the Sunday scaries at the thought of having to do it all over again.

Vernem was quick to point out that Australians take a similar stance: “Sundays are for admin. They’re for doing our taxes, they’re for doing our shopping, meal prepping.” That brings up my second point. On the whole, the French are just less busy. When I was an au pair, my host kids went to school and played tennis. Their resumé, compared to their American counterparts, was shockingly bereft of clubs, art, multiple sports and the bevy of other extracurriculars that the latter need on a college application. The weekends were reserved for spending in the countryside. In short, the French don’t jam-pack their schedules, so there’s time and space during the actual workweek to do life administration, leaving Sundays relatively free.

Of course, the system isn’t perfect, with many listeners chiming in with opinions in the comments section. That’s all to say that in the world we live in, it may not be possible to embrace an entire day of doing nothing. But, I think that the concept should encourage us to figure out how to have, if not a day, an hour or three where we give ourselves the freedom of rest.