Walk the Candle-Lit Aisles of Père-Lachaise and Montparnasse
On 1 November, Paris does not empty out — it turns inward. The cemeteries become the city's most-visited places, and you can join the flow. At Père-Lachaise and Montparnasse, families arrive with pots of heather, chrysanthemums and immortal wreaths, laying them against headstones and family vaults. Candles are sometimes lit at the graveside, a small flame meant to symbolise happiness in the afterlife. Go in the late morning when the light is flat and the paths are busy, and stay as the afternoon shortens; the pots of colour against grey stone are the image of the day.
This is a family occasion, not a spectacle. Keep your voice low, step aside for those carrying flowers, and let the atmosphere do the work. The same ritual plays out in cemeteries across the city, so if you are staying in the north or east, the nearest municipal cemetery will give you the same scene with fewer crowds.
Attend the Messe de la Toussaint
Special church services are held for the feast, including the All Saints Mass — the Messe de la Toussaint. If you want to mark the day the way French families do, find a parish near you and attend. The service is the liturgical heart of the holiday, and it is open to visitors who come respectfully. Check the notice board or website of the church closest to your accommodation for the time of the All Saints Mass; the date itself is fixed — 1 November — and it is a public holiday across France, so the day belongs to the feast rather than to work.
Understand the Two Days — and the Night Between
The calendar here is worth knowing before you plan, because it explains what you will and will not find on the streets.
- 31 October — Halloween. Halloween falls between the two feast days. In France it arrived slowly and only spread widely in the 1990s, boosted by advertising campaigns, Disneyland Paris events and commercial pushes; it was also rejected by some as a marketing operation, and some religious leaders opposed it. The Diocese of Paris once organised a rival wordplay event called "Holy Wins". If you want the French trick-or-treat phrase, it is "des bonbons ou des farces".
- 1 November — La Toussaint. All Saints' Day, and the public holiday. Because this is the day off, French families honour their dead on 1 November rather than waiting for the commemoration that properly belongs to 2 November.
- 2 November — All Souls' Day. La Commémoration des fidèles défunts, the day traditionally given to commemorating the dead. It is not the public holiday; the observance has largely been folded into the day before.
Halloween interest in France stalled from around 2008, and Halloween sales never exceeded Toussaint flower sales. Do not come expecting an American-style street carnival: the dominant mood of this period is a respectful family reunion, and the flower stalls and cemetery gates — not costumes — are where the city's energy goes.
Buy Flowers the Way Parisians Do
The chrysanthemum is the flower of the season here, sold in pots rather than bouquets, alongside heather and immortal wreaths. This is the one purchase that defines La Toussaint in France, and it outsells everything Halloween can offer. Head to a neighbourhood flower market or a florist's stall in the days before 1 November and watch the pots stack up. If you are visiting a grave — of a writer, a musician, a family connection — buy a pot and place it as the locals do. It is the simplest way to take part rather than merely watch.
Time Your Trip to the Toussaint School Holidays
La Toussaint is a school holiday as well as a feast. The break grew out of the potato harvest: children were needed in the fields, so "potato holidays" were organised, lasting two weeks and usually falling between 22 October and 3 November. Those became the modern Toussaint school holidays, still observed by French pupils.
That window — roughly the last days of October into the first days of November — is when you will find the city in its Toussaint rhythm: families travelling to gather, cemeteries at their busiest, flower sellers at their most stocked, and churches preparing for the All Saints Mass. Plan your visit inside that period and the whole observance unfolds around you; arrive outside it and you will find ordinary autumn Paris.
Start with the date: 1 November is a public holiday in France, and the two weeks around it are the Toussaint school break. Book your accommodation with a cemetery and a parish in mind, leave the morning of the first free for the flower stalls, and keep the afternoon for the quiet of the graves. Paris in early November is not a city of fireworks and parades — it is a city of chrysanthemums, candles and family visits, and it will let you join in if you come with the right expectations.