WI: French Revolutionary Calendar Adopted

I always thought the French calendar was quite logical. It's divided into 12 months of 30 days each. Each month had 3 weeks, each 10 days long. The remaining 5 days of the year are one long holiday.

It seems to me it would've been more attractive sticking to a 4 week month with a conventional 7 days per week. There would be a two day holiday every month plus the 5 day feast at the end of the year.
 
With the standard calendar, you got 52 days off a year. With the Revolutionary Calendar, you got 41 or 42 days off.

The average worker was less than pleased with a calendar which did that. :)
 
IMO, it's a very logical calendar, and very easy to learn. I personally like the names of the months as well.

When I learned about it I was honestly surprised it wasn't adopted more widely (understandably not at the time, but surely someone would have picked up on it at a later date).
 
I may be wrong here but I think I saw some kind of semi-scientific report saying that the three day weekend would help some kind of health issue - maybe just health in general - but that 7 days of constant work is estimated to raise office stress levels exponentially.

Might be wrong though. It's been long enough since I heard that that I'm piecing together the memories.
 
It's probably the fact it was the product of the French Revolution that it didn't catch on--it's years were dated from the founding of the Republic, the it was created in such a manner (with the 10 day weeks) so people would not know what day was Sunday and thus be unable to celebrate Mass or other religious holidays--even though the calendar was changed slightly after Napoleon signed his concordat with the Papacy (or before? I can't remember).

Although I do agree with many that it was a nice touch, I too enjoyed the naming convention of the months and even the days. Plus the fact that weeks were referred to as decades? Too cool.
 
Although I do agree with many that it was a nice touch, I too enjoyed the naming convention of the months and even the days. Plus the fact that weeks were referred to as decades? Too cool.
AFAIK the name décade in this calendar comes from a Greek word meaning ten days.

But anyway, to get the calendar to remain in use, it is necessary to get rid of Napoleon. In OTL it was developed during the early Terreur and remained in use until 1806, although declining after the Concordat of 1801. So have Napoleon die, but the Directory develops AIOTL. Sieyès will probably end up ruling France ITTL, but in a more revolutionary fashion than Napoleon. Thus he will not reconcile with the Papacy, and the Revolutionary Calendar will remain in place.
 
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