Faire le pont

Le mot du jour : “Faire le pont”
“Faire le pont” (translation : “to make the bridge”) is, I think, a typically French concept about how to make good use of your bank holidays. Let me explain.

In France there is a fair number of public holidays, particularly in May, where you have : 1st of May (Labour Day), 8th of May (end of Second World War) and, very importantly the catholic festival of “Ascension”, which is always on a Thursday.

So when one of these days fall on a Thursday or a Tuesday, people usually “font le pont” (make the bridge) : they take a day off work on the Monday or the Friday to link the public holiday with their weekend, hence the bridge concept.

This is very common practice, and “le pont de l’Ascension” is completely part of the language in French, for example.

So if people ask you : “Tu fais le pont cette année ?” (Do you make the bridge this year?), they are not asking you if you are working hard as a construction worker but if you are thinking of taking a day off 😀