January in France is not all about resolutions… it’s mostly about cake
Instead of submitting to 31 days of self-imposed penance, marked by abstinence and self-reproach, the French begin the year by eating copious amounts of cake — specifically, galettes des rois.
Every year, January arrives loaded with expectation. Before the holiday decorations have even come down, we’re already busy attempting to undo the damage of Christmas.
For much of the world, January 1 grants us a “fresh start” — the opportunity to leave the past behind and reinvent ourselves for the next 365 days.
It is a season marked by frantic goal-setting and the hopeful belief this will be the year routines finally stick and habits reform. Alarm clocks are set earlier, weekly hot yoga classes are booked, and meal prep plans are made.
For the first few weeks, at least, the future feels oddly predictable and under control.
France, as it turns out, never got that memo.
Long after the Christmas pudding has gone and the last of the new year’s champagne poured, the French carry on their festivities well into January.
Instead of submitting to 31 days of self-imposed penance, marked by abstinence and self-reproach, they begin the year by eating copious amounts of cake. Specifically, galettes des rois.
The ritual has spilled beyond its official date, stretching generously across the entire month.
Hidden inside each galette is a small porcelain trinket known as a fève. The person who finds it is crowned king or queen for the day, rewarded with a paper crown, and tasked with buying the next cake, ensuring a relentless sugar-filled cycle.
Back in Ireland, January feels like a national recovery programme. In France, the idea of a month of repentance is met with a resounding “non”. This difference becomes most apparent when the conversation turns to resolutions, and specifically to Dry January.
The initiative arrived in France six years ago, imported from Britain, where it began as a public health campaign encouraging people to take a break from alcohol after the excesses of the festive season.
In Britain and Ireland, it has become a cultural fixture, complete with branded apps, sponsorship deals, and a familiar social script.
You are either “doing” Dry January, or you are bravely affirming, with varying degrees of conviction, why you’re not.
Despite growing awareness, particularly among younger and urban demographics, Dry January has never taken off in France in quite the same way.
This is partly because the movement has yet to receive any official backing from the French government.
The government has repeatedly and pointedly distanced itself from the campaign, siding instead with the country’s powerful alcohol lobby.
Industry representatives argue France is fundamentally a nation of moderate drinkers, and a month-long sobriety push is an “Anglo-Saxon concept” ill-suited to a culture where wine is consumed daily but rarely to excess.
The problem, they suggest, lies not in frequency, but in misuse elsewhere.
There is, undeniably, a defensive tone to this argument, one that conveniently protects a lucrative industry and sidesteps serious conversations about public health.
Despite the hundreds of lifestyle pieces offering tips for “healthy” boozing, with titles such as “how to drink like a French person”, France has hardly escaped alcohol-related harm.
Consumption remains above the European average, and an estimated 49,000 people die every year from alcohol-related causes. As it turns out, the image of effortless French moderation doesn’t always match reality.
Back home, by the time January rolls around, I’m bombarded with exhortations to cleanse, reset, and detox my body.
Suddenly, the start of the year feels more like punishment for my past sins rather than the clean slate I was promised. It becomes, in many ways, a test of how “good” I can be.
Dry January, in particular, has become the pinnacle of this public virtue-signalling, an easy way to collect kudos from your peers for opting out of a glass of wine during a month when everyone is already too broke or too exhausted to go out anyway.
And considering that most people return to their usual drinking patterns by February, it’s fair to question what — beyond a brief boost in social capital — the ritual actually accomplishes.
Living in France for the past two and half years has really recalibrated my own instincts around self-improvement. Here, nobody marvels at your self-control. Progress is private, unremarkable, and rarely announced.
Nobody eats galette des rois under the illusion that it is healthy. Nobody frames it as a deserved reward or a guilty pleasure either. It exists because it has always existed, because January would feel wrong without it, and because imbibing in small pleasures does not undo the good intentions we set for ourselves.
This is not to say that French people don’t make similar resolutions to the rest of the word. They also vow at the beginning of every calendar year to drink more water, spend less time on their phones, work out more frequently, and call their parents more often. But the difference is that they don’t have the same urgent desire to change their life in a single month.
Improvement is not dramatic or seasonal, but rather incremental and continuous. Crucially, the French don’t believe pleasure should be periodically offset by denial.
France’s cake-first, resolutions-later approach ultimately reveals a culture that values balance over bans, pleasure over penitence, and moderation over abstinence.
Perhaps the best way to kick off the new year is not by going on a crazy crash diet or eliminating whole categories of enjoyment from your life, but rather sitting down at the table, cutting a slice of cake, and trusting yourself to stop when you’ve had enough.
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