Fête des Pères – Fathers Day
Father’s Day, Fête des Pères in French, is an important celebration in France, which takes place on the third Sunday of June.
French children are showing off their creativity by making ties, bow ties, pencil holders and cardboard frames from their cereal boxes.
The older children sometimes dip into their savings to buy gifts from the many stores that offer ready-made presents, often expensive ones.
That said, Father’s Day is not a recent tradition. Its indeed goes back to the Middle Ages, and was celebrated in many Catholic countries, including France.
A brand of lighters re-invented Fathers Day
This festival, which had fallen into oblivion, resurfaced at the beginning of the 20th century, however, without any religious connotation.
Indeed, the Breton lighter brand Flaminaire played an important role in its revival, for purely commercial reasons. Flaminaire launched the first classic petrol lighters in 1908. Initially considered luxury items, lighters quickly became more widely available, particularly during the First World War.
Consumer society experienced a resurgence of interest after World War II, and the pleasure of giving gifts was rediscovered. At that time, smoking was common among men, and giving a lighter to one’s father for Father’s Day became the tradition.
Capitalising on this trend, Flaminaire launched a vast advertising campaign, thereby helping to popularise the tradition further.
Fathers Day – a non official celebration
Father’s Day was thus established two years after Mother’s Day. However, unlike the latter, it has never been institutionalised, although it is celebrated every year on the third Sunday of June.
On Father’s Day, dads receive various gifts, including roses, which have become the emblematic flower of this holiday. There is an unwritten tradition: red roses are given to living fathers, while white roses are placed on the graves of deceased fathers, in their memory.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons: WWI French Gasoline Lighter by Rosco~commonswiki CC BY-SA 2.5
