1936: The Popular Front and Paid Vacations

The massive strikes of May-June 1936 transformed French society more profoundly than any labor action before or since. Beginning at the Breguet aircraft factory in Le Havre, strikes spread spontaneously across France, eventually involving 2 million workers. But these weren't ordinary strikes—they were occupations. Workers didn't just refuse to work; they took control of factories, organizing production, maintenance, and security.

The occupied factories became festivals of working-class culture. Workers organized concerts, theatrical performances, and political education. Simone Weil, the philosopher who worked in factories to understand working-class life, described the occupations as "a celebration of dignity." For the first time, workers entered spaces previously forbidden—executive offices, luxury hotels, department stores—claiming them as rightfully theirs.

The Matignon Agreements, negotiated between Leon Blum's Popular Front government, employers, and unions, granted unprecedented concessions: 40-hour work weeks, substantial wage increases, and—most symbolically—two weeks of paid vacation. The image of working-class families heading to the beaches for the first time became iconic, representing not just leisure but human dignity.