May in France is a dreamy month for workers: sunshine, garden BBQs, and those delightful “ponts” that stretch a one-day holiday into a four-day break. But Bayrou says it’s time to swap the sun lounger for the office chair.

The measure most likely to rankle the French was a proposal to scrap two national holidays: Easter Monday and May 8, which commemorates the end of the Second World War in Europe and is often used as a “bridge” by the French to take a four-day weekend in the middle of spring.