In Lyon, the Festival of Lights on Wednesday evening drained tens of thousands of spectators subject to strict health instructions due to the pandemic.

Popular and cultural event welcoming over a million people over four days, the party was canceled in 2020 due to the health crisis.

This year, as usual, the city center, closed to cars, was taken over by festive groups who came to admire the works.

With light in your eyes, here is the point in pictures.


Director:

Olivier JUSZCZAK

  • From Wednesday 8 to Saturday 11 December, the city of Lyon lights up again with its traditional Festival of Lights.

  • This year, as usual, the city center, forbidden to cars, was taken over by festive groups who came to admire the first lighting of the ecological municipality.

  • Subject to strict health instructions generally respected, the Festival of Lights drew tens of thousands of spectators on Wednesday evening.

  • The maintenance of the 2021 edition was far from certain, and the final green light from the authorities was not granted until Tuesday, December 7.

  • "Wearing a mask will be compulsory on public roads, especially in a context of dense crowds", inside a "health perimeter", had detailed the prefect Pascal Mailhos during a press conference.

  • To avoid “gatherings” in this edition which will take place every evening until Saturday, the sale and the itinerant consumption of food and drink are also prohibited in this perimeter, mainly intersecting the peninsula of the city.

  • A “closed” restaurant area, with a capacity of 1,500 people and accessible by health pass, has however been set up in a square on the left bank of the Rhône.

  • At each intermission of the 31 artistic creations on offer - mainly in the hyper-center, but also in more distant neighborhoods - a loudspeaker message, in a soft tone, reminds the public of the procedure to follow.

  • Signage, sound messages and city mediators also recall "the need to wear a mask," added the mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet.

  • The government health defense council gave the green light to this event "in full knowledge of the facts, on the basis of compliance with these conditions".

  • This is the opportunity for thousands of people to come and immerse themselves in different universes.

  • Like in a jungle ...

  • In a damp cold, facing the fountain of the Place des Jacobins draped in candles, a couple of Swiss septuagenarians, who came for the occasion, said they had not shrunk from the health situation, in the middle of the fifth wave of Covid-19: " We have our third vaccine, we are not asking questions.

    And the mask is a bulwark, it is a good measure to have imposed it.

    "

  • A thousand police and gendarmes and 470 security company agents are mobilized for this event, which had an attendance of 1.8 million visitors during its last edition in 2019.

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