Bakeries fined on May 1st: "Employees want to work, despite the CGT"

On Labor Day, it is indeed forbidden to work in bakeries and pastry shops. Thus, 18 bakeries and 4 pastry shops, out of a total of 35,000 points of sale, were fined on May 1, 2025, the Ministry of Labor revealed to RMC.

Because the law is strict: bakers can open on May 1st , but they are prohibited from making their employees work . A bakery that makes its employees work on Labor Day is liable to a fine of 750 euros per employee, even if the employee is a volunteer.

A provision that has the Big Mouths screaming this Tuesday: "Can we get out of this nonsense? Can we make company agreements everywhere? Because there are employees who get along well with their bosses and who want to work, despite the CGT," rages Dr. Jérôme Marty, while the union has spoken out against the opening of bakeries on May 1st .

"The vast majority of people who create jobs are very small businesses. Stop messing with them; they're the ones who keep our country going. We need to allow freedom of enterprise and employees to choose whether they want to work!" adds the very angry practitioner.

"In many bakeries, some owners pay themselves very little or even nothing to pay their employees," says teacher Barbara Lefebvre. "And these small bosses don't get anything. URSSAF (Regional Union for the Protection of the Environment) hunts them down and sends labor inspectors after them on May 1st because it's a very serious matter to make bread on that day," she adds. "The state is tough on the weak and weak on the strong."

Ironically, these fines come two weeks after Prime Minister François Bayrou's comments that "the French were not working hard enough."

The number of fines issued to bakeries and pastry shops is almost the same as in 2024, when 21 outlets were fined on May 1. Contacted by RMC, the National Confederation of Bakeries announced that it will pay the legal costs of the bakers and pastry chefs fined.

Catherine Vautrin, the Minister of Labor, assured that she could not prevent labor inspectors from inspecting recalcitrant bakeries, adding on TF1 that she was ready to change the law to allow bakers to open.