- It is not yet known if the big clearance sale in Lille will be maintained in September.
- The event, which drains millions of visitors, seems incompatible with the coronavirus epidemic.
- The LREM candidate for mayor of Lille militates for the maintenance of the clearance sale in a version however altered.
Sell everything except health. Nine days after returning to an almost normal life, Hauts-de-France is still in the red on the map of France for deconfinement, which has not been updated since May 7. At the Lille hospital center, we gave ourselves two to three weeks before seeing a resumption or not of the coronavirus epidemic. No one to date therefore knows what tomorrow will be like. Regarding a possible cancellation of the Lille clearance sale, traditionally scheduled for the first weekend in September, the town hall has still not spoken. However, the LREM candidate for mayor of Lille, Violette Spillebout, wishes to maintain this event, in a revised version.
Depending on the year, the Lille clearance sale attracts between one and three million visitors. What is considered to be the largest garage sale in Europe is therefore not, on paper in any case, compatible with the sanitary measures in force in an attempt to stem the circulation of the coronavirus. In this regard, 20 Minutes had questioned two scientists: "Maintaining the sale is to run the risk of relaunching a transmission cycle," says Michèle Legeas, teacher at EHESP and specialist in the analysis and management of health risk situations. Violette Spillebout (17.53% of the votes in the first round) nevertheless thinks that the challenge can be taken up.
“Tracks” submitted to Lille residents
With her collective "Make Lille breathe", the candidate put on the carpet "work tracks" which will be submitted by questionnaire to Lille. Among these tracks, Violette Spillebout puts forward the idea of a "flea market in all neighborhoods" which would be reserved for individuals and spread over four days instead of three. To avoid crowds generating promiscuity, the candidate imagined an "online reservation system for visitors, per half-day and by sector".
In order not to harm traders, "Make Lille breathe" offers them a dedicated clearance sale which would take place during the first three weekends of September in pedestrianized areas for the occasion. This last measure has already been implemented since Saturday in the hyper center of Lille. There is even talk of setting up a “special digital clearance sale currency” to avoid the exchange of cash.
In terms of logistics, the operation seems complicated but not impossible. After the cancellation of the 2016 edition due to the terrorist threat, drastic security measures were put in place in the following years. Except that it will be a question of extending these measures to the whole of the city by taking into account the safety factor and the coronavirus factor. For this, Violette Spillebout wants the town hall to mobilize “volunteers in all the districts. »To see if the masked clearance sale can take.
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- epidemic
- Coronavirus
- Lille
- Clearance sale