Halloween is not a traditional French holiday. The first formal celebration of Halloween, apart from parties in French language classes attended by Americans, was in 1982, when the American Dream bar/restaurant in Paris began celebrating Halloween. At first the bar staff had to explain the holiday to each customer.
Cahen created Le Samain cake in 1997 and registered the word “Halloween” as a world trademark. He also challenged 25 artists to come up with works with a Halloween theme, and the results were exhibited at the Victor Hugo Clinic. In 1996, the village of St. Germain-en-Laye held a Halloween party on 24 of October in the middle of the day, to give locals a sense of what it was all about.
During the 1990’s, companies like France Télécom, McDonald’s, Disney, and Coca Cola began using pumpkins and other Halloween images and ideas in publicity campaigns. This increased French people’s knowledge about Halloween but made it seem like another imposition of American culture.
Halloween in France is usually celebrated by costumed people of all ages going to parties at friends’ homes, restaurants, bars, or clubs. The costumes are more traditionally scary such as mummies, ghosts, witches and vampires rather than the variety of costumes seen in the U.S. Trick-or-treating is getting to be more common. It started out store-to-store, rather than house-to-house, but the latter is picking up. Pumpkins are not that popular in France so having a carved one sitting on your front porch is not really much of a tradition here. It’s too early to really tell if Halloween will develop into a long-term tradition in France or just be a passing fad.
Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates this tradition!
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