• Clara Luciani will be the godmother of this 2021 edition of the Champs-Elysées Christmas lights.

    She will have the honor of flipping the switch on November 21.

  • The ceremony, which has an international resonance, will be free and, for the occasion, the avenue des Champs-Elysées will be exclusively pedestrianized all day.

  • The 400 plane trees will be dressed, until January 9, according to the “Flamboyance” theme, produced by a French company, and will consume “only” 23,400 Kwh.

It is arguably the brightest Christmas chestnut tree.

This Thursday, the Champs-Elysées committee presented the avenue's illuminations for this winter.

Event awaited in France but also around the world, these illuminations are one of the symbols of the capital.

The inauguration ceremony will take place on November 21 with a distinguished godmother. 

20 Minutes

sums it all up for you.

Clara Luciani on the button

Vanessa Paradis, Jean Dujardin, Laëtitia Casta, Karl Lagerfeld… The list of previous sponsors of the event is prestigious.

This year, the singer Clara Luciani will have the honor of succeeding Louane to press the light switch.

Surrounded by Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, Marc-Antoine Jamet, the president of the Champs-Elysées committee and two young girls from the Petits Princes * association, partner of the event.

According to the committee, she represents her generation "in the grip of freedom, pride and independence".

His song Respire is described by the organizers as a “hymn of deconfinement and rediscovered freedom”.

Give back the meaning of celebration and Christmas in Paris

The organization wants to see in these illuminations the return to "a joy of living" after the various crises that the Champs-Elysées, and Paris, have known.

After the 2019 strikes, the "yellow vests" then the Covid-19 crisis ... Tourists, French and foreign alike, have somewhat abandoned the "most beautiful avenue in the world".

Daily attendance has thus increased from 150,000 people in 2017 to 15,000 in March and is rising slowly.

Through these illuminations, Marc-Antoine Jamet hopes to "give back the meaning of celebration and Christmas" to the capital and see the attendance of the Champs-Elysées regain its level of a few years ago.

A ceremony and a popular show

If the image of the avenue often goes through the luxury of some of its signs, the Champs-Elysées committee insists on the popular aspect of Christmas lights.

The free and accessible ceremony is a spectacle open to all.

The avenue will be entirely pedestrianized for the entire day of November 21 to allow as many people as possible to attend.

Marc-Antoine Jamet notes that the illuminations are a free show that lasts seven weeks (until January 9) and daily since it is lit every evening from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., and even all night long for Christmas Eve and of New Year's Day.

French and global resonance

The organization prides itself on seeing the Champs-Elysées ceremony as a Christmas kick-off in Paris, France, but also around the world.

According to the Champs-Elysées committee, the departure ceremony is watched around the world and covered by around a hundred media.

A quarter of French people should see the illuminations, on site, or through television or the Internet.

Significant publicity for the 180 economic and cultural players participating in this event, so the budget is estimated at one million euros.

A sustainable and sober "Flamboyance"

For the fourth year in a row, the “Flamboyance” theme will dress the avenue des Champs-Elysées in a red light dress.

Produced by the French company Blachère Illumination, it is the symbol of the sustainability of illuminations.

First, because it has been coming back for several years, and could last for at least a year.

But also because it shows "frugality and sobriety" according to Marc-Antoine Jamet.

The 400 illuminated plane trees consume “only” 23,400 Kwh, ie “the equivalent of the consumption of a family of four in an apartment for a year”.

Paris

Champs-Elysées: We participated in the installation of Christmas lights

Miscellaneous

Paris: A motorist hits four pedestrians on the Champs-Elysées, laughing gas found in the vehicle

* Founded in 1987, the Association Petits Princes fulfills the dreams of seriously ill children and adolescents suffering from cancer, leukemia and other genetic diseases. 

  • Covid 19

  • Paris

  • Xmas

  • Champs-Elysees

  • Deconfinement

  • Clara Luciani