Au revoir, the holiday is over...

Hailed 50 years ago as a revolutionary benefit for the French working class, the VVFs provided cheap and cheerful summer breaks. But now they're being sold off. By Alex Duval Smith

Farewell happy camper, au revoir to the un-deux of the morning gymnastics line-up. Not even the free afternoon pastis over a game of boules is drawing le Français moyen to holiday villages any more.

In a move that marks the end of an era of state subsidies for organised working-class holidays, the Villages Vacances Famille (VVF) - France's answer to Butlin's - has surrendered to the modern age. VVF and its 52 French holiday villages are to be privatised.

Tourism officials and sociologists say French holiday habits have evolved in the 50 years since VVF was created, but this week's announcement has infuriated trade union activists and people on the traditional left wing.

"These villages were built with public funds for the public good and now they are being turned into something that is supposed to be lucrative and to attract luxury tourism," said Jean-François Chierbert of the communist CGT trade union.

The union, which last year staged several demonstrations against the sell-off of VVF Vacances, is not only mindful of the 1,500 jobs at stake. It says the state-controlled Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC), which owns 80 per cent of VVF Vacances and is selling off all but a minority stake, has a social duty to safeguard the holidays-for-all philosophy.

VVF's first village opened in Alsace in 1959 with the stated intention of "allowing families to spend healthy, restful holidays thanks to the collective services". Fifty-nine years earlier, in 1900, the building workers who had just finished the Paris Metro became the first employees in France to enjoy 10 days' paid holiday. On the eve of the First World War, office workers were granted a week off a year. It was not until 1936 that employers were required by law to give all staff one week's paid leave. It was a further 20 years before periods of two or three weeks were granted by individual employers, such as Renault. Finally, in 1969, a law was passed enforcing four weeks' paid holidays and, in 1982, the period was extended to 30 working days.

In VVF's first decade, the holiday villages were an enormous success. By the mid-1960s, VVF was opening up to 10 new holiday camps every year. They offered activities such as golf and windsurfing that had been considered the preserve of the rich. Forty per cent of VVF's holidaymakers in the 1960s were low-wage earners who did not pay income tax.

During the boom years, local authorities in rural areas donated land to VVF and the powerful network of Comités d'Entreprises - French workers' councils in every large company - financed the landscaping of the camps and the building of chalets. The government also chipped in through the Caisses d'Allocations Familiales (CAF) that pay French child allowances.

But in the 1980s, the money for new building ran out and so, it seems, did holidaymakers' appetite for tout confort villages that were all the same and where the activities never changed from year to year.

The concern over the demise of VVF Vacances extends beyond political circles to academics and the holiday trade. They claim that, even though working-class spending power has improved, many French people do not go on holiday and there is a market for cheap and cheerful resorts.

Gilles Caire, who has studied how the French spend their leisure money, said VVF had been the victim of several factors. "When VVF started, there was a strong sense of the need to establish that holidays were a human right.

"In fact article 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was often quoted. It says we have the right to 'rest, limited working hours and regular paid holidays'. That was the thinking that led to the creation of VVF and of the CAF's very popular 'Bons Vacances' (holiday vouchers).

"In the 1970s, 60 per cent of VVF building was funded by public grants," he said. "But in the 1980s, construction costs increased and people began to have higher expectations of their holiday destinations."

Holidaymakers in other European countries took advantage of the growth of charter flights and began to explore foreign destinations, but this was never massively the case for the French. Even now, only one in nine French holidays is spent abroad.

Felizitas Romeiss-Stracke, a German sociologist who specialises in European holiday habits, said the French do not like to go far away.

"There is a wide range of landscapes in France - mountains, beaches with guaranteed sun - so there is less of a need for the French to go away," she said. "French government policy over the years has also encouraged people to stay at home, for instance, through the development of the Mediterranean coast and the Savoie [Alpine] region. Also, taxation is low on property so it has become perfectly normal for French people - even those from a relatively modest background - to have a second home."

Other experts said there are still great inequalities in the holiday sector. Figures show only about 25 per cent of low-income households go away on holiday, but 90 per cent of those on high budgets have breaks away from home every year.

French children have the most holidays in Europe - 17 weeks - but 86 per cent of them spend more than half their holidays at home.

M. Caire said that in Western societies, it is normal for between 50 and 70 per cent of people to go away on holiday every year. In Germany, the figure reaches 80 per cent but in France it remains closer to the 50 per cent mark. "In 2002, more than 11 million French people never left home all year and it is looking as though we are seeing a levelling out of holiday habits," he added. "Even though we have more and more leisure time, we are not spending more on holidays but we are spending increasing amounts on consumer goods."

Tourism professionals agree that changing spending trends have been the leading cause of the demise of VVF and other group holiday providers like Club-Med who have survived only by diversifying into the gymnasium sector.

They say French people's increased leisure time has, if anything, been of detriment to the group holiday sector and the phenomenon which used to be known as les juilletistes (manual workers taking July off) and "les aôutiens" (white-collar workers who opted for August). In the 1970s and 1980s, 8 per cent of French people took holidays during those two months. The advent in 2001 of the 35-hour working week for civil servants and other public-sector workers has been a further blow. Christian Mantei, director general of Odit, an agency that conducts statistical surveys for the French ministry of tourism, said the 35-hour week has led people to spread their holidays over the year.

"They get days off, what we call RTT [réduction du temps de travail, or reduced working time], to make up the time off. As a result, people tag these days on to long weekends to create extended holiday periods throughout the working year.

"French holiday habits have changed drastically," M. Mantei said. "Time off is increasingly spread over the year. The average holiday period now is two weeks, and it was three or four weeks before.

"More and more French people take a couple of weeks' family summer holiday and spread their other trips to long weekends throughout the year.

"Another factor that has complicated life for the tourism sector is that people have access to internet and other high-speed communication. They are therefore reluctant to make bookings six months in advance."

Research into where French people are actually going on holiday shows a boom in the mobile home market. In 1990, 1,000 mobile homes were sold in France, all of them imported. Twelve years later, 22,000 were sold, almost all French-made.

"The mobile home has become the Frenchman's second home," said Jacques Dehondt who runs a camping site at Hondschoote in the north of France. "The mobile home is ideal for people with RTTs to use up. It is not a huge investment so it does not represent an obligation. At the same time, it is always there and you can pop up to your mobile home any time."

As for VVF, it will end up in the private sector, despite the protests. Its owner, CDC, has engaged in "privileged talks" with Odalys, a company specialising in holiday lets. A CDC spokesman added that, thanks to a restructuring effort in 2001 which split the holiday and property arms of VVF, the company made a profit of €800,000 (£550,000) last year, against a loss of €500,000 the previous year.

He added: "We wish to remain significantly and durably associated with VVF which is why we are going to keep a controlling minority stake in the company."

The happy campers of France will just have to stay in, watching the television, in their mobile homes.