Le premier avril

"Poisson d'avril !" That's what you'll hear in France, on April 1st, after a friend tries to make you believe a tall tale or a little kid sticks a paper fish on your back.

OK, that's April's Fool, but why a fish?? You'll find the explanations you need, in English,  on this webpage.

You'll find on this other page, shown in class, another quick explanation, as well as the RATP's (that's the company that operates the Parisian subway) 2017 joke: they added big stickers around stations' names to form puns. The puns are explained in English. Scrolling down the page, you'll also find some useful vocabulary about April's Fool and joking in general, and a funny video at the bottom of the page.

As for a selection of poissons d'avril for 2019, here it is! The RATP strikes again this year by giving subway travelers an opportunity to send prank selfies to their friends and pretend that they took a plane to an exotic destination instead of going to work or school. In order to do so, they placed posters imitating a plane window in some cars and they replaced the usual ads with exotic landscapes in some stations. The landscapes match the station names, so you find this picture at the "Pyramides" station, these ones at the "Rome" station, that other one at the "Pyrénées" station, etc.

This year's catch also includes two jokes by the police nationale. (Who said cops aren't funny?)
In this video, they recruit police rabbits. And on this poster, they offer the public to test illegal drug quality for free... and they even throw in possible housing at the police station and a leisure stroll in company of a police dog!


If you'd rather have the Poisson d'Avril explanation in video format, here's the one created by Géraldine at Comme une française (in English, with French vocabulary):

And here's another video by French Possum, in French with English subtitles, that includes many examples of poissons d'avril from years past: