May 1st is not only Labor Day, but also the day when people give sprigs of lily of the valley to those they love.
Lily of the valley was only associated with Labor Day during the Vichy government. On April 24, 1941, Marshal Pétain officially established May 1st as “the Festival of Labor and Social Concord.”
But this tradition does not date back to such recent times.
In ancient Rome, celebrations in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers, reached their peak on May 1st.
The Celts celebrated the beginning of summer on the same day. They erected a tree around which they danced to ward off evil spirits. They also believed in the lucky charm virtues of lily of the valley.
In 1560, King Charles IX, on a visit with his mother Catherine de Medici in the Drôme, was offered a sprig of lily of the valley by chevalier Louis de Girard de Maisonforte, picked from his garden in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. From May 1, 1561, the king started giving sprigs of lily of the valley to the ladies of the court, saying, “Let it be done so every year.”
Thus, the custom was born.
