It is a feast dating back several millennia: "Nowruz", the Persian New Year, falls on spring day.
But for the second year in a row, the holding of the usually very festive event is disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
So for the 2021 edition, the Meydane Institute, a think tank on the Orient located in Paris, is launching an online program.
Modules to tell "Nowruz" and its origins
On their site, drawings, texts and videos will be broadcast daily on the subject.
In a Parisian apartment, explanations from specialists were filmed a few days earlier.
Among them, Reza Afchar Naderi, doctor in Persian literature.
Facing the camera, he details for example what the iconic "haft sin table" is behind him.
The rite consists of placing seven elements beginning with the letter "s" of the Persian alphabet on a table full of symbols.
"Nowruz" is a Zoroastrian festival, ancient religion of Persia.
It is still celebrated today by nearly 300 million people around the world, in the Middle East, in Central Asia, in the Caucasus and in the Balkans.
Amir Mohsen Zandi, president of the Meydane Institute, intends to place himself in the continuity of his ancestors by honoring the tradition despite the health situation: "Nowruz has been able to perpetuate itself through all ages, by adapting to different circumstances, sometimes even very hostile. We have always been in creation, and in this challenge of being contemporary. And this year also we have adapted and we have used technology to be able to continue to celebrate this multi-millennial celebration ", explains he does.
On the thirteenth day, a ritual to get rid of negative waves
The holiday has been widely exported by the Iranian community to its host countries.
Reza Afchar Naderi can attest to this: every year, he is called upon by many organizations to prepare "Nowruz" celebrations.
"Here we are in the period of Covid it is still very special, but every year in France, the Iranians mobilize, they reserve the halls in town halls in Paris, to speak only of Paris ..."
The celebrations last thirteen days, until an event called "Sizdah bedar": "What marks the end of the festivities is a big picnic, all Iranians go to the countryside ...", reports the doctor of literature Persian.
The online modules will run until day 13, when it is customary to take sprouted wheat, barley and lentil shoots with you and throw them into a stream.
It is then considered that they have absorbed all the negative waves of the past year.
The ritual will be full of meaning this year.
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