The measure most likely to rankle the French was a proposal to scrap two national holidays: Easter Monday and May 8, which commemorates the end of the Second World War in Europe and is often used as a “bridge” by the French to take a four-day weekend in the middle of spring.

That's among a raft of spending cuts laid out by Prime Minister Francois Bayrou in a sweeping, and potentially doomed, budget plan. He argued that removing two state holidays would bring in tax revenues generated from economic activity,