In Lille, the Fiesta parade launched six months of colorful cultural events as part of Lille3000. The 2025 edition seeks to counter today’s global turmoil with a joyful collective spirit.
A vibrant fiesta offered a joyful response to global chaos on Saturday evening, as crowds gathered for the opening parade of Lille3000, a special six-month cultural season held roughly every three years since 2006.
For this 2025 edition, aptly named Fiesta, glowing creatures covered in fluorescent boas paraded alongside spinning giants from northern France, while acrobats soared above Lille’s Grand'Place on high wires. Hundreds of volunteers from different neighborhoods joined the festivities.
Following a 2022 edition that focused on humanity’s relationship with the environment, the 2025 season, running through November, aims to contrast the fiesta with the fury of the world, explained Lille3000's general director Jean-François Chougnet to AFP.
"Celebration is a powerful antidote to the world’s hardships, and although it’s a serious subject, it’s also profoundly subversive," said Chougnet. "It allows people to critique the powerful and to foster inclusivity."
This year’s edition, destined to become one of the lasting legacies of Martine Aubry’s time as mayor, comes just weeks after her resignation and the appointment of her deputy, Arnaud Deslandes, as her successor ahead of next year’s municipal elections.
While celebrating is a well-rooted tradition in northern France, this year’s Fiesta highlights southern cultures, with several events linked to the France-Brazil cultural season that also launches this month.
During the parade, the float from Brazilian collective Themônias blended Amazonian imagery with the spirit of Drag culture.
"It’s amazing to have a city that puts on free events like this for everyone," said Marion, a 32-year-old spectator. Another attendee, Capucine Hodin, noted, "They’re almost too successful—it was hard to move through the crowd."
Beyond the opening parade, Fiesta will feature around thirty exhibitions, performances, balls, and banquets.
One of the main exhibitions, Flemish Festivals and Celebrations at the Lille Museum of Fine Arts, explores 16th- and 17th-century festivities through works by Brueghel and Rubens.
At the Tripostal contemporary art space, the exhibition Pom Pom Pidou! offers a colorful journey through modern art with loans from the Centre Pompidou.
Meanwhile, Macronist MP Violette Spillebout, a former ally of Aubry now running for mayor herself, criticized the high cost of Lille3000.
"Projects that were once innovative, like Lille 2004 (when the city was European Capital of Culture) and later transformed into Lille3000, are now so heavily funded that they crowd out other initiatives that might otherwise emerge or thrive," Spillebout argued in a recent op-ed.
With AFP
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