1. The Easter Bunny doesn’t exist.
Probably the strangest thing for an expat in France to get their head around is the lack of Easter Bunny. We Anglos know that it’s an enormous adorable fluffy bunny that brings us chocolate eggs at Easter – but in France it’s bells. Yes, bells. Which is insane, bells don’t even have hands/paws. Get this: all the church bells fly to Rome for Easter. (Perhaps there’s as bell conference on, who knows?) Then they return from their jaunt with chocolate eggs, like how my mum brought us Toblerones after overseas trips. Which means there’s a difficult choice for expat parents to make: tell your shiny eyed lovely that the Easter Bunny made a special trip over to France just for them, or try to stop your eyes rolling while you explain about the bells ?
2. What’s with the chocolate fish, France?
Photo: “Le 1er avril est proche” by Ioannis Nicolis. CC BY 2.0
Along with chocolate-shaped eggs, bunnies, bells and chicks, you will sometimes see chocolate fish. Fish? France, you’ve gone mad. Well, no. To be clear, the fish aren’t really related to Easter but to a French tradition known as poisson d’avril, celebrated on April 1st and similar to April Fool’s Day. The origins are somewhat disputed but one theory is that, as April 1st was the end of the fishing season, pranking neighbours would hang fish from the backs of fishermen to mock their inability to work. Hilarious!
Another, more probable theory, relates to the change of date on which New Year was celebrated from April to January. The New Year’s gift-giving tradition persisted into April and often the present would be fish, an acceptable food to eat in a period that often coincided with Lent, when meat was avoided by Christians. A tradition developed where people would give fake fish at this time – perhaps to mock those not accepting the change in calendar – and continues to this day in the form of chocolate fish (and other, non-fish related tomfoolery).
What’s this got to do with Easter, you ask? Nothing, other than the fact the it’s often celebrated in April and the chocolate fish get incorporated along with the chicks, bunnies and eggs.
3. The French don’t do hot cross buns.
Toasted spiced buns studded with juicy raisins and oozing with butter, hot cross buns are an Easter treat that can be enjoyed in the weeks running up til Easter. But not in France. If you’re in the Paris region, Marks and Spencer’s is your saviour with a selection that included a version with chocolate chips instead of raisins for dried-fruit refuseniks. Best of all, they’re often reduced in price because their existence confuses Parisians.
4. Egg games are not *egg-actly the same.
Photo: “Easter Eggs” by Matito. CC BY 2.0
It is the law – in my brain – that Easter eggs must be rolled before being eaten. Even a cursory tumble of a foil-covered chocolate one across the carpet will suffice. Like many oddball things we do without necessarily knowing why, this has its roots in religion; rolling eggs represents the rock outside Jesus’ tomb being removed and (spoiler alert!) the discovery that he had risen from the dead.
In both the UK and France, great fun is had by rolling eggs from the top of hills and seeing which ones have not smashed at the bottom. But, whereas in Britain the eggs are hard-boiled and painted as delightfully as little hands can, in France the eggs are raw. Things can get a lot messier in France. Other egg-based fun exists in France, for example, tossing uncooked eggs in the air as often as you can without breaking them. What could possibly go wrong?
*I apologise.
5. The French don’t have an obsession with bibilical epics.
It’s a British tradition to broadcast a biblical epic at some point over the Easter weekend. I can’t claim to be a big Bible fan but there’s just something reassuring about being slumped in front of the telly watching a minimum three-hour film from the fifties featuring tanned and shiny Roman soldiers, perfectly made-up slave girls and blue-eyed actors pretending to be from the Middle East.
6. Chasse-aux-oeufs is a big deal.
Photo: “Chasse aux oeufs pour Paques” by Campus France. CC BY 2.0
This ties in with the bells-bringer scam the French have going on. The bells, probably exhausted after flying back from Rome – without wings – don’t make the effort to deposit the eggs in the child’s house like a considerate pretend gift-giver (*high-fives Santa*) but instead scatter them in open spaces. A chasse-aux-oeufs (egg hunt) is then necessary to gather these chocolatey droppings. Egg hunts exist in the UK, of course, but not on the same scale. Often towns arrange mass egg hunts for the local children. It’s really rather adorable except for the parents yelling “PAR LA, KEVIN !” from the sidelines, like enraged Alex Fergusons.
7. You will witness incredible chocolate artwork.
Photo: “Chocolatier” by Nick Barnes. CC BY 2.0
Chocolate shops go to town with incredibly detailed chocol-art (I word, after checking Google, I am disappointed to find I am not the first person to have thought of). Seriously crazy levels of intricacy, matched only by their crazy prices. Their beauty and the craftsmanship involved in making them must make them difficult to actually eat, if anyone ever bought me one. (This is a lie. I would hesitate about 2 seconds before scoffing the lot in a piranha-like feeding frenzy.)
8. You don’t get a lie in on Good Friday.
If you’re reading this today (Good Friday) you may have noticed that you are at work, not luxuriating under the comfort of your 15 tog. That’s because the Friday before Easter Sunday isn’t a public holiday in France the way it is in the UK, which can lead (for some people, I’m told) to epic pub-based mega weekends. Easter Monday is a day off in France, at least.
9. Cadbury’s Creme Eggs aren’t a thing either.
Let’s get this straight: now that I’m a fully grown-up adult human person, I don’t even like the damn things. But Cadbury’s Creme Eggs are so wholly ingrained into my concept of Easter that to not see them on shop shelves is jarring. For those not in the know, Cadbury’s Creme Eggs are small chocolate eggs filled with gooey white and yellow fondant, mimicking the appearance of a real egg. The genius behind them though, is that they aren’t sold all the year round, just the months leading up to Easter. As a child, spotting the first Creme Eggs of the season was as thrilling as seeing a robin in the approach to Christmas. Tooth-achingly sweet, virtually impossible to eat tidily, Cadbury’s creme eggs are child heaven. I can’t have been the only one to scoop the inside out with a teaspoon, can I?
