Heritage Days 2025: discover the Paris Bourse du Travail

Every year, the Journées du Patrimoine (Heritage Days) give millions of French people the opportunity to visit monuments, museums, places of power and worship, historical curiosities and new buildings over a special weekend. Numerous sites open their doors to the general public, and offer free events to help visitors discover their history and special features.

For some, it's a chance to enjoy the great museums. Others prefer to wander around their city, pushing open the doors of ministries or parliament, or visiting France's top schools. Still others decide to explore little-known places and secret historical sites.

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If that's your plan, you've come to the right place. In Paris, the Bourse du Travail opens its doors to us on the weekend of September 20-21, 2025. This historic monument, inaugurated in 1892, was once a place where workers could look for work, with the help of trade unions. Today, the Bourse du Travail is a meeting place where employees can turn to the unions for help in the event of difficulties with their employment contract.

The program for these Heritage Days at the Paris Bourse du Travail includes:

• Self-guided tour of the Paris Bourse du Travail
  Saturday, September 20, 2025 - 09:00 ⤏ 16:00 | Sunday, September 21, 2025 - 09:00 ⤏ 16:00
  

  The Bourse du Travail, more than a century of history.

  On March 3, 1851, a certain F. Sain, a deputy from the Loire region, asked the Legislative Assembly of the Second Republic to create a "worker's stock exchange" in Paris, to help the circulation of labor in the same way as the financial stock exchange, which had helped the circulation of capital since its creation in 1724.

  But the idea was not taken up again until 1875, and in 1884 it was submitted to the Paris City Council, whose majority was Blanquist and Radical-Socialist, who voted in favor of the idea.

  The first Bourse du Travail was inaugurated in 1887.

  Its purpose was to provide trade unions, which had been authorized since the 1884 law on freedom of association, with a "house" grouping together the various trades, with offices and meeting rooms.

  
  
  

For more discoveries and visits to Parisian institutions, see our dedicated Heritage Days guide.

Journées du Patrimoine 2025: discover the great institutions of Paris and the Île-de-France region
For the 2025 edition of the Journées du Patrimoine in Paris, major institutions are opening their doors to us this weekend, September 20 and 21, 2025. From the Banque de France to the Cour des Comptes and the French Ministries, you'll be able to take in all the secrets. [Read more]