Today is a holiday in France: Ascension Day. It's a Christian holiday, but most churches in France are more empty than full. Like other holidays that France marks in May, Ascension Day is a reason (or pretext) for taking a long weekend. 

Today (Thursday) is a national holiday. Government offices, post offices, schools, banks, and many businesses are closed; most people have the day off from work. 

But tomorrow (Friday) is not a holiday. This would seem to cut short high hopes for a long weekend. But the French are ingenious, and have worked out a solution to this problem. It's called a "bridge" (pont), that unites a holiday and a customary weekend (Saturday + Sunday) into one long, continuous stretch of leisure time. 

Taking the bridge (faire le pont) is not seen as shirking or a badge of laziness, but instead very much as a right or entitlement. Among major employers, there's some back-and-forth about whether a bridge will be awarded (with pay); usually, it is.

I've noticed some bridge creep this year, with weekenders taking off even earlier. In Paris, where I live, traffic seemed especially lively on Tuesday evening, and the streets midday Wednesday seemed unusually quiet. Elementary schools mostly don't have class on Wednesday (for reasons too complicated to elaborate on here), and Paris cancelled the athletic or artistic activities that take the place of a schoolday.

I'm enjoying a weekend in the Normandy countryside with family, and hope to take my children to visit the D-Day landing beaches in advance of big-scale commemorations next month.