Vacations out of reach for some French

Sunbathers enjoy Paris Plage along the bank of the Seine river Wednesday.

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PARIS, France (AP) -- Sunning himself on a bright blue beach towel, Romain Playner looked like any summer vacationer. But the unemployed actor wasn't on vacation. In fact, he hadn't even left Paris.

"I just try to pretend I'm on holiday by doing summery things here," said the sunbather on the bank of the River Seine. "This is the second year I haven't taken a vacation."

"I'd love to go," he added. "I just don't have the money."

With unemployment hovering at 10 percent, a growing number of French can no longer afford a traditional August getaway -- a summer ritual that symbolizes the good life a la francaise.

"Holidays have gotten very expensive, and more and more employed people who used to go find that they can't anymore," said Jean Froidure, a tourism expert at the University of Toulouse. He called the trend "very worrisome."

"The vacation is a potent symbol in French society, a visible sign of a certain social standing," Froidure said. "Not going on vacation can cause people to lose confidence not only in their own future, but also in French society in general."

Considered a privilege of the elite for the first half of the 20th century, the vacation was "democratized" during the prolonged economic boom that followed World War II. The number of French vacationers rose continuously in the following decades, growing from an estimated 30 percent of the population in 1950 to more than 70 percent in the early eighties, Froidure said.

After stagnating for about two decades, these numbers appear on the decline. Nearly four out of every 10 French people don't go on vacation -- nearly half of them because they can't afford it, according to a 2004 study by the Tourism Ministry.

All European nations guarantee employees between four and five weeks' paid vacation a year. The United States and Australia are the only industrialized countries without national minimums on the length of vacations, according to the International Labor Organization.

The French average seven weeks of paid vacation a year -- two more than the country's labor laws stipulate. They work an average of 1,441 hours per year, compared with 1,661 hours for the British, and 1,824 for Americans, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.

In August, France all but shuts down. In Paris, so many shops, restaurants and pharmacies close that those staying open often put up signs: "We're here in August."

But things are changing. The number of people unable to get away is on the upswing, and worried officials are starting to respond.

For a fourth year, Paris has transformed a 3.5-kilometer (2.1-mile) stretch of the right bank of the Seine into a temporary beach, trucking in tons of sand and palm trees and drawing hoards of well-oiled, bikini-clad stay-at-homes.

Last year, a record 3.9 million people -- Parisians and tourists alike -- visited the riverside beach.

"There are now lots of interesting things to do in Paris during the summer -- even for a Parisian," said Jocelyn Dubois, a 31-year-old translator, as he worked on his tan on the makeshift beach. "It makes not leaving on vacation a little less painful."

In the northern industrial Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, authorities have made getting to the coast more affordable, providing round-trip tickets on beach-bound, weekend trains within the region for a symbolic one euro (US$1.24).

The offer, in its third year, cost the regional council euro 835,000 (US$1 million) this year. More than 30,000 people have taken advantage of the program.

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