French Public Holidays

For a country which is very strict in the separation of church and state, the French have a lot of religious holidays. Next Wednesday is a public holiday here as it is Assomption Day, which is apparently the day when the Virgin Mary ascended to heaven. I guess that means it is the day she died, I'm not sure why we are all celebrating that but apparently the Christians think it is important. They also have Toussaint, 1st of November which is All Saints Day and Ascension, the Thursday 40 days after Easter which is when Jesus went up to heaven as well as Easter and Christmas, obviously. There are quite a few holidays around Easter, but I'll have to check if they actually give us them as holidays.