Why is the gendarmerie escorting a huge fir tree in Hautmont?

This huge tree was offered by the inhabitants of Hautmont to their municipality.

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• Due to the coronavirus epidemic, many cities have canceled their Christmas markets.

• In Hautmont, in the North, there will therefore be no market, but the illuminations have been maintained.

• Residents donated huge trees to decorate the streets of the town.

Christmas and against all.

Due to the health crisis, it hangs over the end of year celebrations like a nasty smell of fir.

In a North under curfew, we do not know what the coronavirus has in store for us in the weeks and months to come.

Already, many municipalities, including Lille, have anticipated by canceling their Christmas markets.

However, if we have to resign ourselves to giving up the old-fashioned wooden chalets that smell of mulled wine, nothing prevents from decorating the streets.

This is what the commune of Hautmont, near Maubeuge, is preparing to do, with the help of its inhabitants.

Saturday, it is a very strange and bulky convoy which crossed the city of Hautmont under escort of the gendarmerie.

On the bed of a good-sized semi-trailer lay an even bigger tree, so much so that the crew only passed hairy in some streets.

The tree belonged to a family living in the town and it had been enthroned in their garden for around forty years.

And, rather than chopping it into logs, the owners of the conifer decided to donate it to the city for the holiday season.

My big tree, king of roundabouts

Weighing over three tons and 12 meters high, it was installed on the Calvaire roundabout and will be illuminated in November, just like its other little tree buddies.

Because there won't be just one.

A local company will install three more, smaller in size, but still measuring seven meters.

The last tree will not be Hautmontois.

"These are the inhabitants of Maubeuge who offer the city a tree about twenty meters high", explains the town hall of Hautmont at

.

It will be cut on Monday then will be installed on another roundabout, that of the Place du 8 novembre.

Once all this little world is in place, the city's technicians will adorn the branches of these colossi with "dozens of balls and light garlands", specifies the town hall.

Moreover, the entire town must be illuminated from the end of November.

Indeed, as every year, the inhabitants are encouraged to decorate their houses to participate in the competition for the most beautiful Christmas decoration.

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• Lille